Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing the O Marriage Visa. Specifically we are discussing the topic of tax documentation associated with O Marriage Visas. Now I will kind of keep this general but bear in mind I am looking at this from the perspective of extensions here in Thailand. As we have discussed in other videos, there has been a change to Thai Tax Policy specifically with regard to accessible income and the timing with which it is brought into Thailand.

As we have discussed at length in those other videos, there is a way to sort of buffer one's tax liability through the timing of bringing monies into Thailand and I am not going to go any further into the analysis on that because we have done other videos talking about that specifically. But long story short, the question posed is "will that lead to the possibility that a Thai tax return needs to be filed in order to apply for a Thai O Marriage Visa Extension here in Thailand?" So if somebody remains longer than 180 days here in the Kingdom and they want to go ahead and extend their O Marriage Visa, do I think it is possible that in the future, part of that application will include a tax return to just show what one's tax situation is in order to go ahead and get that O Marriage Visa Extension? My gut tells me, and let me be clear, I don't know for sure. I am not going to sit here, stand here I should say, and claim that I know with 100% certainty exactly what is going to happen in the future. But based on what we are seeing now with regard to these changes in tax policy as well as other statements that have been made by policy makers here in Thailand, I think it is at least reasonably prudent to presume that this could happen, that we could see text documentation become an integral part of the visa extension application package. What does that mean as a practical matter? Well first don't freak out because I don't think that this is even going to start happening until 2025 at the earliest. If you recall as we discussed, this tax policy is changing beginning January 1 of 2024, so it is not even really as a practical matter going to be required until the tax filing that would occur in 2025 for the tax year of 2024. 

So the reason for the video is more or less hopefully to calm people down a little bit. I know people are getting sort of overwrought about this; I have noticed a lot in the press, the ether of the internet is really, unfortunately the internet is sort of spitting out a lot of information. I won't say it is like misinformation, disinformation; I don't like those terms anyway, but it is half formed analysis and it is also a lot of analysis by folks that really don't have any in my opinion, credibility when it comes to discussing matters pertaining specifically to the Thai Tax system. Unless you know how the Thai Tax system works, and it is a different tax system, it doesn't work the way Western tax systems work. We have a tax division here in our office; we have an accounting division. They assist primarily in corporate matters here in Thailand but we also do assist folks with their personal Thai tax returns. I myself as I have discussed in other videos, I am a member of the US Tax Court, but again this isn't American Tax policy, this is Thai tax policy and this rule change is in its infancy. We don't know exactly what this is going to look like. So again as we discussed a moment ago, it is why I have intentionally stayed vague because you need to be very careful with who you are listening to on these topics because unfortunately, in my opinion I have heard a few people talking who in my opinion don't even have any clue what they are talking about. As we have discussed in another video made contemporaneously with this one, I don't think it is a good idea to be overly flippant about these recent changes to Thai tax policy. I've seen folks that have been talking out there saying “oh this isn't something to greatly worry about”. As I discussed when we first broke it and we didn't break it, I think it was the Thai Enquirer did, but when we broke that at the beginning I said “hey calm down, it's not implemented yet”. That doesn't mean that it's not a big change; this is a big change.

That being said, with regard to O Marriage Visa applications packages, yes, I think it's possible although not a foregone conclusion that that could become one of the elements of a petition for an O Marriage Visa Extension. When do I think that would happen? Not immediately so don't freak out about it. In my opinion I think the earliest we would see something like that is 2025. I guess in theory we might be able to see it in 2024 if they did a major rule change but it doesn't make a lot of sense to me because the policy regarding this change in how they tabulate accessible income, it doesn't come into effect until 2024 so the first time you would be able to even file a tax return would be in theory January 1 of 2025. So again, not an imminent issue to worry about but definitely something to keep in the back of your mind because it could become part of the process of applying for a Visa Extension here in the Kingdom of Thailand.