Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing tax policy here in Thailand yet again and we are specifically discussing it in the context of retirees here in Thailand.

There has been a lot of well there has been a lot of talk swirling around the Expat Community, I get it. People are kind of confused and quite honestly, we are still waiting for the clarification ourselves. What we know at this point is basically Thailand has regularized its tax system; it is in line with basically, they are doing things the same way virtually every other country around the world deals with things in line with their Double Tax Treaty obligations but Thailand had this situation where you could defer and mitigate tax liability by waiting to bring money into the country after a certain duration of time depending on when the calendars fell between the time money was accrued and money was brought into Thailand. I am not going to go into deep analysis on that because we have talked about that in a lot of other videos. 

But one thing I have noticed is there is a lot of misconceptions, quite honestly, I hate using the word misinformation, disinformation because those terms have become quite honestly so politically weaponized lately but the fact of that matter is, there is just inaccurate information that floats around the ether that is the internet and where possible I would like to try to provide clarification or correction in order to give people a better idea of what is actually going on. Part of the reason performing this channel, creating this channel and doing these videos, it was all based on the fact that I started doing this primarily talking about US Immigration, some Thai Immigration and it has evolved over time and broadened out quite substantially. But the reason I originally started this channel and started making these videos was because for years I had been here in Thailand and I had just seen constant inaccurate information across forums, I would see it in Q&As across the internet about matters here in Thailand or information that was outdated. As we saw recently, I had some outdated notions that got updated, I corrected myself on this channel. At the end of the day, the purpose of this channel is to try to provide as much more information as possible. To that end, I thought of making this video after reading a recent comment on our channel, quoting directly: "Unless you holding a Business Visa as a foreigner, you cannot work." That is a misnomer, I am making another video separately to go into that. "If you have a Business Visa, then you are registered as a taxpayer." Also a misnomer, I'll get to that in a minute. Quoting further: "Minimum income set by the Thai Government at 50,000 Thai baht." also a misnomer, I'll get to that in a minute. "Therefore, a taxpayer, a contribution to the Social fund too, however you will not qualify for the state pension. Therefore, all non-working retirees are currently outside of the tax system in Thailand, not your own country. To add the retiree and the Thai tax system can and will emanate vis," I think they meant vis a vis, "your Visa document, via your Visa documents." Quite honestly this whole comment is convoluted and I don't even really understand the thrust of it. That said, the component parts in it I want to comment on because this is probably a bit more prevalent a presumption and I think it should be sort of dispelled. "So all non-working retirees are currently outside of the tax system in Thailand." Not true. As we discussed in other videos that was a misconception floating around that if you don't sign up for a Thai Tax ID number that you are not liable for Thai taxes. Not true as well. Just because you don't work in Thailand, does not necessarily dictate you are not liable for Thai taxes, that's why this change in announcement is so important because if you accrue overseas income or if you accrue overseas gains, capital gains for example, unearned income, interest something of that nature, dividends, royalties in for example a trademark copyright or patent context, again, it could be earned income, unearned income. In the past however it was accrued, if you waited until the next calendar year from the year it was accrued to bring it into Thailand, you could mitigate tax liability, you could avoid tax liability. Now that is going away January 1, 2024 that is no longer going to be the case and so just because you are a non-working retiree in Thailand that doesn't necessarily mean anything. If you have accrued a capital gain abroad and you bring that money into Thailand, then it is possible you could have tax liability associated with that. Now, as per usual, it is all going to be fact dependent, circumstantially dependent based on the underlying facts in the given case. But that said, just to sort of say if you are not working and non-working retirees in Thailand not subject to Thai tax liability”, that's not true, again it is going to depend on circumstances. 

At the end of the day what we do know that's going to come about from this change in rules is the fact that that may not be true. In the past yeah, yeah you could wait around and bring it in later bring later and not have the liability, now that's not going to be the case. So again just because you are not working in Thailand as a retiree doesn't mean you can't have Thai tax liability depending on how long you have been in Thailand and depending on the nature of some sort of accrued gain. So again, be very, very careful when reading anything on the internet about this because again it is very much based on the specific facts of a given case and it is also not fully clear exactly how this is going to play out so until we have more clarification, for example in my situation, I see a given client's fact pattern, that is the only way I can determine whether or not, when I say I but we here at the firm could determine whether or not tax liability may or may not exist, so this sort of black and white analysis quite honestly lay person analysis of this, you are going to go really wrong trying to follow that because that is not how the law as a practical matter and in reality actually works.