Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing tax probes to the tune of nearly 15,000 total, associated with the - as I've been discussing the recent, and by recent, I mean the last 2, 3 months now - crackdown associated with nominee companies in Thailand. I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Thai Examiner, that's thaiexaminer.com, the article is titled: Foreign nominee firms still the target of an escalating crackdown and blamed for poor economic growth. Quoting directly: "More than 14,800 tax probes, 17,556 land investigations and thousands of police cases revealed the sheer scale of Thailand's campaign against suspected nominee companies, signaling a fundamental change in how foreign owned businesses are monitored. Thailand's crackdown on foreign nominee shareholding has become a full-scale economic enforcement campaign, with 23 agencies, thousands of tax, land and police investigations and new registration checks cutting high-risk company formations by more than 65%." 

So the point of this video - and I urge those who are watching this video, go check out Thai Examiner, thaiexaminer.com, it is an exhaustive article as they usually write; a lot of good information in there. The point I am trying to make in this video is look, of all of the enforcement departments in this country, the one that truly causes shivers down my spine is the Revenue Department. When the tax man is angry, the entire rest of the system tends to align behind whatever their concern is for a variety different reasons but most notably, governments have to function, they need Revenue in order to do so. Whether we like it or not, they need to garner taxes in order to do that.

Something I have pointed out in prior videos, and noted citations and things to this effect, one big issue associated with companies in Thailand is the issue associated with - or companies in Thailand and this whole nominee issue - is the issue that many authorities in law enforcement believe that these types of structures are being used to siphon wealth out the country without paying any relevant tax on it. Something akin to what we used to call the Zero-Dollar tour so-called scam, where basically all the money for these tours was basically being reposited in Hong Kong, and people were all doing these tours; it was sort of a closed-circuit thing. Thai Authorities got involved because they believed that they weren't getting their proper tax due, and it resulted in a person actually being detained it's my understanding, until a certain amount of money was forthcoming to secure their release, and that money was associated with what was believed to be essentially unpaid taxes. Similar in this circumstance.

I've discussed in other videos how the main priority associated with these nominee structures seems to be associated with illegal land ownership or what is perceived to be illegal land ownership, but let's not forget the fact that there is a tax component here and that is just as serious, because if it's determined that there are tax issues at play in any one of these sort of nominee investigations, you could be looking at a situation where you are not only possibly looking at criminal liability, seizure if possible assets, but also accrual of what is deemed to be unpaid taxes and possibly penalties associated therewith. 

For those who find themselves in the situation where they are in a corporate structure that they feel uncomfortable with, it may not be a terrible idea to contact a legal professional, gain some insight and guidance into how best to proceed.