Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, I am positing to the Bangkok Post, at what point was it even implicitly presumed that Thailand's membership in OECD is both a) inevitable and b) particularly good for this country. Let's dig into why I am talking about this.

First of all, the article is titled: PwC highlights tax and legal reforms, which, look I have written for the Bangkok Post in the past; I received no remuneration. They published it. It had a sort of promotional effect. I don't know what the relationship between PwC and Bangkok Post is but remember, there's a level of this where PwC is trying to sell you something, so at what point is something called an advertorial? I don't know. The bright line rules on like what they used to call Church and State in journalism have largely eroded away and now we just kind of have to judge for ourselves, but it is worth pointing that out.

So for that reason while I am going to get into this even deeper, I think it's worth pointing out, I do deep-dive analysis on where I think a lot of this is going, how I think this is going to impact especially the expat community, and the world generally as things move along. If you are interested in long form content of that nature, please feel free to email us, [email protected], and you can get on the mailing list for that content. As I discussed in other videos, that will be morphing at the turn of the year into another organization which I will get into in further videos in the future. Also while I am talking my book, I think it's worth pointing out, my better half and I set up a restaurant here in downtown Bangkok, Pancake Palace, as the name implies, breakfast anytime. We have got American style breakfast, pancakes obviously, as well as bacon and eggs and we have got good old fashioned American Diner style food like cheeseburgers, hamburgers, chilli bowls as well as buffalo wings. So if you are interested in all of that good stuff, please feel free to check the links in the description below, come see us in downtown Bangkok if you are around.

That said getting back into this: PwC Thailand highlights tax and legal reforms. Quoting directly: "As Thailand moves closer to joining the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)" - first, that is not a presumption that they are moving closer. Parliament ultimately has to pass this and as I have discussed in other videos, they marketed this in the United States, and that's the right term for it, the way they rolled this out with their PR which is another word maybe for propaganda on a certain level. In the last Administration back in the United States, similar to what they're doing here, where they sold it as sort of a semi-inevitability; it's just a generally good thing. Yellen came around with this Global Minimum Tax nonsense when she wasn't doing mushrooms with the Chinese but that was the long and the short of it. And frankly it was highly undermining to the country or it was aiming to undermine the country, as I'll get to here in a moment and explain in greater detail. But one, the thing to first of all understand in this video, OECD is not finished here. It's not conclusive, as even the Bangkok Post has to point out with their "moving closer, moves closer" which isn't I think even an accurate way to describe what's going on here, but instead it does point out, even the Bangkok Post is pointing out, (excuse me I'm getting my thoughts together here), that yeah, this isn't done, this isn't promulgated legislation through the Thai Parliament that has gone through all due process and it is now the law here. They are thinking of doing it, they're thinking of doing it and then in furtherance to that, they do all these things to bring things into alignment which is important and I'll get into here in a moment when I get into Trump back in the United States' Executive Order ending all of this, that stopped it in the United States, and in my opinion Thailand needs to do the same thing. Stop this thing dead in its tracks right now. Stop aligning things with a piece of legislation that has not been passed. It is not difficult to comprehend that. Quoting further: "PwC Thailand brought together legal and tax experts at its 24th annual tax and legal seminar, titled: "Maximising Shareholder Value." 

Well here's an interesting thing. In much like and the expat community can go back and reckon with this from the Memorandum of Quarter 4, 2023 through 2024, up to now, how much has the expat community and how much can we posit would any community benefit from a bunch of tax folks saying how much we're all going to be taxed by future legislation in the future that now we all have to do all this new stuff in order to just get on with our lives. They're creating their own jobs here is what they're trying to do, is what I'm trying to tell you, in much the same way as we saw the episode play out with all of this nonsense in the expat community surrounding retirees have to file tax returns etc. etc. This is the same game now played out on the national level for Thailand, and it's always OECD behind it all. And all these tax experts, foreign tax experts by the way, which that draws into question where do they get the authority? How do they think that they are operating legally if they are foreigners? 

Now as the article gets into, I believe it was a Thai person that put on the presentation. But again this is Thai Tax matters we are talking about and ultimately there are restricted occupations here in Thailand, which I have discussed in other videos, so foreign influence in this is really creepy. But isn't OECD itself a foreign entity that Thailand has not signed on with yet, and yet here we are getting things into “alignment” with them. Why? Why the protocol change? It is my understanding, you pass the law and then you go ahead and do the alignment stuff. Is it because maybe this law might not be passed because if the citizenry looks at it or anybody looks at it and really scrutinizes it - like the Trump Administration did - they will throw it out because it is a threat to their own national sovereignty? Could that be why they want you to align first, and pass the legislation later? So they basically accomplish their objectives, effectively put the cart before the horse as we would say in English? It's a good question. And to my transcriptionist who transcribes all these videos and puts them up at legal.co.th, and thank you very much, tip of the hat to you, translate this with top priority, as articulately legally as possible into Thai because Thais need to be aware of this issue going into this election. This is arguably the biggest issue on the map for Thailand right now. And the only way people are talking about it is as if it is a foregone conclusion to begin with, which is not an accurate assessment of it at any level in analyzing legislative process. And on top of it, a die-hard ally of Thailand has rejected this out of hand as a threat to National Sovereignty, so Thailand really needs to look at this. The citizenry, everybody, it's not a good, as I will get into, it's not a great thing but yet here are these same folks that may be looking to make a whole bunch of money from changes to the way that we do tax filings and all kinds of documentation and things, coming along, telling us all that it's an inevitability: it is concerning. That said, quoting further: "Held on 22nd October as part of the annual PwC Thailand symposium under the theme "From insight to action: Staying ahead of change" at the Siam Kempinski Hotel Bangkok, the event offered in-depth insights into emerging reforms and strategies for future-ready governance." "Future-ready governance!” So when foreigners or foreign interests come into Thailand and try to change how policy works in Thailand, oh that's not undue influence, trying to do this alignment stuff. Look I am serious concerns about this as I discussed in other videos under Section 119 of the Law. I haven't brought that part up yet because it's a very serious Law if you read it. But this pertains to Thai Sovereignty and here is outside influence talking about "Future-ready governance" for Thailand. Are Thais on board with that? Did anyone ask the Thais, are they on board with OECD and Future Ready Governance for their country? I missed that memo. Quoting further: "Niphan Srisukhumbowornchai, Thai Legal Lead Partner at PwC Thailand, led a team of experts in sharing perspectives on Thailand's evolving tax and legal landscape. The session aimed to help entrepreneurs and business leaders prepare for wide-ranging reforms in Law and Taxation." Apropos of what? We have got an election looking to come up in quarter one of next year. It is not a foregone conclusion any of this is going to happen. Are Parliamentarians honestly thinking they are going to pass this into law and think we are all going to forget it come election time? During this interim session that we're dealing with in Parliament, because I'm not going to forget it. This is serious stuff. OECD, as President Trump's own Executive Order has laid out, operates, at least to the eyes and mind of one of Thailand's oldest allies, in the eyes and mind represents a threat to National Sovereignty. I would think at policy levels, that is at least being discussed here in Thailand. And I think it should at least be discussed going into the elections, just as a member of the Thai electorate myself, I think that I have that opinion. And where is this coming from? Where is this coming from, that "wide ranging reforms in law and Taxation"? That this is like an inevitability; this is ridiculous to me. That said, quoting further: "which represent key milestones on the country's path towards OECD membership."

Did anyone in Parliament sign off that we want OECD membership? When did that become a thing? Quoting further, and again, the notions of preparation and stuff that are presumed in here, I find it very concerning as should any Thai, that an outside entity such as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development i.e. the OECD, would have these designs on Thailand and be treating us all kind of infantilizing us in a sense, by presuming that this is just a foregone conclusion amidst all of the political change we are going through right now here in Thailand. It's very concerning that foreign interests are the ones that are doing this in Thailand. And that said, I don't agree with Trump on every little thing, but for the most part I think many, many big issues I think me and Trump probably see closer to eye to eye than we don't see eye to eye on other stuff; whatever. The point being on OECD, his Executive Order is spot on.

Quoting directly from whitehouse.gov, under the title: The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Global Tax Deal.

Memorandum for the Secretary of the Treasury, the United States Trade Representative, the Permanent Representative of the United States to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. 

SUBJECT: The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Global Tax Deal. "The OECD Global Tax Deal supported under the prior administration not only allows extra-territorial jurisdiction over American Income" - I think the exact same thing can be said in analyzing what kind of effect it would have over Thai income. What does extraterritorial jurisdiction mean? It means people from outside the Kingdom of Thailand would be telling folks inside the Kingdom of Thailand what their income tax could be, if you look at it from the analytical standpoint of this Executive Order. And quite honestly, I think it's very solid legal analysis. Quoting further: "but also limits our Nation's ability to enact tax policies that serve the interests of American businesses and workers." Again, yes, it clips the national wings if you will in being able to make determinations regarding local, national tax policy as well, which is what this Executive Order pointed out. Quoting further: "Because of the Global Tax Deal and other discriminatory foreign tax practices," - again I love the terminology, because it is accurate. "Discriminatory foreign tax practices." The practices of taxing by foreigners outside of the local jurisdiction is what they are talking about here, or what Mr. Trump is talking about in his Executive Order on this issue. Why was he passing an Executive Order? That's a good thing to point out, because procedurally, I don't love Executive Orders, legally speaking. But he was doing it because the prior Administration took the position that, "oh we're moving toward OECD, therefore we're going to direct the bureaucracy to "align itself",  "align itself" in such a way that it is in line with OECD Policy, so we are ready when the law is passed." It's another BS way and I state that, it's a BS, nonsense way of trying to implement policy without passing Law, without due process, in this case legislative due process, and the Trump Administration spotted that and killed it basically the moment they came into office because they were able to do it with Executive Order, because it was occurring previously through Executive Order, in my opinion illegitimate. I don't like a lot of these Executive Orders but this was one where the underlying policy was legitimate so that's what occurred, procedurally. 

That said, quoting further: "American companies may face retaliatory international tax regimes if the United States does not comply with foreign tax policy objectives." Again this exact same analysis could be applied to Thailand’s position if Thailand is to come under this fully. It's not good. It means like foreign entities can go ahead and just sort of dictate what's going to happen with regard to tax policy internal to Thailand. Not a good idea overall in my opinion. That said, quoting further: “This memorandum recaptures our Nation's sovereignty and economic competitiveness by clarifying that the Global Tax Deal has no force or effect in the United States.” So those who want to know, okay what is this Global Tax Deal? What is all of this that the Trump Executive Order threw out?

Going over here to back to PwC. Pillar Two Country Tracker. Quoting directly: "Under the OECD Inclusive Framework, over 140 nations have committed to a two-pillar approach tackling issues from the digital economy's expansion. Pillar Two sets a new global minimum Effective Tax Rate (ETR) of 15%" - who in any of these countries voted for that? We had a saying at the Revolution in America. ‘No taxation without representation.’ Where were the people asked if that's what they wanted? To participate in a global scheme of minimum taxation of 15%? When was there any consultation to the public? I'm waiting. I've been waiting a while. Quoting further: "impacting multinational groups with revenues over €750 million." Yeah, again, bear in mind why PwC is talking and Bangkok Post is talking about this, all of this. They stand to make money. By the way, I'm advocating against my pecuniary interests in many ways. I do tax work. We have a Thai Tax component here at the firm. We make money off this too, but I don't want it. I was talking against my own interest during COVID too. I didn't want to live in a world of COVID nonsense forever, the COVID totalitarianism. I made more money during that time. I will probably make more money off of this nonsense tax crap, but it's bad for my adoptive country, just as it is bad for my country of birth, as the President of the United States himself pointed out. And then it goes further into this, and I wanted to go over to What is Pillar 2, and you go over to oecd.org. So this is OECD's own website. Quote: "Global Anti-Base Erosion Model Rules". Anti-Base Erosion Model, - what does that mean? It means the base is you get to live in your own country and be left alone by anyone taxing you outside of your own country, and they want to erode that. That's what it means to me. Quoting directly: "A key pillar of the OECD/G20 BEPS Project is addressing the tax challenges arising from the digitalisation of the economy." - it is harder to track you down. In the brick-and-mortar world, it was a lot easier to nail you down and tax the crap out of you, that's basically what it comes down to here, what they are worried about in the “digitalisation” of the economy. Quoting further: "In October 2021, over 135 jurisdictions joined a groundbreaking plan" - ground breaking plan - "to update key elements of the international tax system" - Now did they do that at the behest of their own populations or at the behest of a small subset of bureaucrats conveniently in similar places throughout the entire global bureaucracy if you will, or respective national bureaucracies that interact with each other in different means and manner. For example in the EU very different going through Brussels than other places, for example in the Old Anglosphere area, what we call the sort of Commonwealth which is different from the way similar bureaucrats work in the United States. But it's only them that had this “groundbreaking idea”. There was no groundswell of support in the Netherlands or Kansas or Portugal or South Africa or Japan or anywhere else in the United States. There was no groundswell of support that said, "hey, hey, International technocrats please set a Minimum Tax Rate on all of our populations". No, there wasn't. It would have been in the news; you would have heard about it. It did not occur. Quoting further: "To update key elements of the International Tax System which is no longer fit for purpose in a globalized and digitalised economy." Who says? Who gets to dictate that it's no longer fit to purpose? And again, was any national referendum put to the population, to the various nation state members of the OECD regarding that issue, in order to gauge whether or not the sentiment was in fact that the system we have heretofore been using our entire lives, is no longer “fit to purpose”? Did anybody ask any of us that question? Or did you just want to dictate all this crap to us? 

Quoting further: "The Global Anti-Base Erosion Rules (GloBE)" – it spells ‘Globe’, yeah we get it - "are a key component of this plan and ensure large multinational enterprise pay a minimum level of tax on the income arising in each of the jurisdictions where they operate." Well how about those jurisdictions worry about their own tax? That's how we have always done it. The nation state is pretty well, it's not perfect, what was it Churchill said about like "Parliamentary Democracy not being the best system but it's better than all the others", or something of that nature. Look, the nation state system for whatever its often problems and things, from a tax standpoint it has proven perfectly effective at getting the tax levels that it needs to support itself. Why the additional layer and again where throughout the world is there this call for all we need this supranational subset of bureaucrats to all dictate to us that we need to pay them more money? No it doesn't exist because it's nonsense; OECD is bad for Thailand; long story short. 

At the end of the day, I hope, if it's not going to be just talked about in the open, I hope it becomes a major election issue because the moment that anybody sees the details of how all this works, the parties that get behind this are not going to fair well when they are having to face the voters on this issue. What does Thailand benefit out of being in the OECD? Exactly as Trump pointed out right when he came in, America isn't getting anything out of this. Thailand is not going to get anything out of this either. So at the end of the day I think it would be a good idea if we all just forgot about it. It would be nice to see. People have asked me, they have said, "oh would you ever ask to be a member of something like Bhumjaithai Party?” Not as long as being an OECD member is still on their, that was what they said coming into this government; that's what they wanted. I like Bhumjaithai; I like other parties. I'm not saying I want to join a Party or I ever would, but I've made my biases known; I like Bhumjaithai, the way that they do things, but on OECD, I couldn't disagree more unless they have maybe had a change of heart. I know they are a very pragmatic Party and if they understood the underlying issues here, they might see that maybe this isn't the best policy either. And especially they might want to look at this going into election year because they are going to have to answer for it going into this coming year. 

So again, to sort of circle back, at the end of the day, clearly I have serious concerns about OECD. I have noticed that my ratings on YouTube and things on any of these videos, it's like the minute that the system sees that I am talking about OECD, they just disregard it. Maybe they'll stop, maybe they won't but this is a key issue for Thailand. I'm not going to stop talking about this; this is as important, as much of a threat to Thailand's national sovereignty and other key issues here in Thailand as COVID was for example. And actually I think it's even more pernicious than COVID, because at least with COVID, people felt it in their day-to-day so there was more of an impetus to maybe change things. With OECD it's much more subtle. People don't understand it; people don't like to talk about banking. I get it. It can be seemingly boring, but this is important stuff. I don't ever want to see a situation where outsiders that don't come from Thailand, that aren't from Thailand, that are of foreign origin, are dictating to people in Thailand what their tax rate is going to be. I don't think that's a good situation in any way, shape, or form.