Transcript of the above video: 

Everybody's favourite topic is taxes here in Thailand, so let's dig in here. I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Tourism tax stimulus on the cards for low season. 

So the thrust of that article gets into the possibility of a tax deduction on people's personal income tax to try to stimulate tourism. To be clear, the headline seems to imply that it pertains to like a tourism tax as we have discussed in other videos; it doesn't. It's talking about a tax credit if you will for domestic tax returns to sort of stimulate tourism. But the excerpt I am going to quote pertains to AI. Quoting directly: "The department has four AI development initiatives: developing a voice-enabled AI chatbot to answer tax payer inquiries". Let me just point out from personal experience how fantastically terrible AI chatbots are when you are trying to deal with a bureaucratic institution. I've been an Immigration Attorneys for more than 17 years at this point, and USCIS, you used to be able to call in and after a great deal of consternation, you could eventually talk to somebody on the phone. Oftentimes you would be on hold forever, and then you would get them, and you'd deal with whatever. Now you have this AI chatbot that sort of acts as a gatekeeper. Sometimes you are able to get through and get an actual person but for the most part, this AI chatbot just keep spinning you in circles. The only thing I have ever seen from AI chatbots when they operate in some kind of question and answer service for a bureaucracy is just the runaround; that is really all it is. Quoting further: "using AI to analyze tax collection data". That's a big one folks; that's a big one. The digitization of all of this documentation and the ability of AI to collate and analyze it I think will have a tremendous impact on both the expat and the Thai Community here in Thailand with regard to tax collection endeavours, efficiency and enforcement, so big deal here. That said, quoting further: "employing AI to scan and digitize paper-based information for faster processing and tax auditing." Because that is what you want, is more efficient tax auditing! Look, this is happening, so that's why I am reporting on it. I don't particularly like it; I'm laughing, sort of gallows humour here. It's not something I am really happy about, but the fact of it is, is it's happening, and this is the reason to have solid assistance with regard to professional services associated with accounting, tax compliance. We here at our office, we have a division that is tasked primarily with that endeavour. Meanwhile, we also have legal services and things in order to keep one in full compliance with legalities so as to avoid having any problems even as we go into this new digital era. That said, quoting further: "and creating a "One Portal, One Profile" system for taxpayers." Because that's what you want!  You want one profile, a unified profile for yourself as an individual. Look, I'm glad we never got the Digital Wallet because the Digital Wallet would be this stuff on steroids. They still have to go through some levels of due process to be able to squeeze tax revenue out of people, and why would they want to do that? Well quoting further: "Regarding the Department's tax collection performance, with about 2 months remaining in the fiscal year, he said revenue is near the state target. The Department's revenue goal for this year is 2.37 trillion Baht." So again they set these targets and by the way, they themselves set the targets and then they tell us all if they fall in short or whatever. So that's one thing to understand. Meanwhile, this is all done, sort of ignoring the fact that for three years they completely shut down Thailand's economy during the so-called COVID era over let's call it effectively an over exaggeration at best and now they whine basically about shortfalls. Well there are going to be shortfalls when you shut down the economy for three years, you lose however many countless businesses in the process of doing that. I know multiple people, especially in the food and beverage sector, that went bankrupt during that era; it's not good. 

So at the end of the day, I guess the point of this video for the expat community and if you are interested, I go into a deeper dive in some of this, probably in an upcoming video that we are doing on our long-form news service, Integrity News Service. If you want to get on the email list for that, check us out: [email protected], we can get you on the emailing list for the long form paid news service. While I am talking my book, I might as well point out Pancake Palace, downtown Bangkok. Diner style food as well as breakfast anytime including pancakes. The link is in the description below.

But in sort of rounding this out, digitization is coming, and they are going to apply AI tools to it. You should probably get your ducks in a row, your house in order if you will, not to mix metaphors, sooner rather than later, so as to be prepared for whatever the consequences of this AI introduction into the tax system ultimately is.