Transcript of the above video:

Now unfortunately there has been a lot of talk about Tax in Thailand and frankly about 80% of it that I have seen on the internet is nonsense - in fact, it's probably higher than that, it’s about 90% - especially from people who are unqualified to talk about Thai Tax matters, especially those who come over into the Thai bailiwick; that's a violation of Restricted Occupations. I've gone over that at length in many other videos before. So, you shouldn't be getting Thai Tax advice from a foreigner, they're not even legally able to dispense it. It's a crime in Thailand to do that for a foreigner, so bear that in mind. Then meanwhile, they don't even most of the time know what they're talking about. Now I can't blame lay people for that because that's the nature of being a lay person; just you don't have the deep knowledge of every little picayune difference between liability, assessability etc. That said, I'm going to quote an article here and I am not trying to be pedantic and pick this apart for the purposes of my quote in this article, but it is worth pointing out, there is a difference between accessibility and liability. What am I talking about here? 

I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Pattaya Mail, that is pattayamail.com, the article is titled: Thailand's DTV game changer: let sleeping dogs lie for now. Quoting directly: “After all, the Thai Revenue Department is keen to tax assessable income, from January 2024, transmitted to Thailand by any Thai or foreigner who clocks up a total of 180 days or more in a calendar year." That is not untrue in its own right, and I urge those who are watching this video, go check out that article because the thrust it that goes in very different direction, so you might find that interesting. I'm going to do other videos contemporaneously with this one where we discuss some things involving the DTV. 

That being said, the thing I want to drive home. Assessability is not liability per se. Their ability to assess you for an asset, some sort of income, capital gains whatever; revenue, accrued revenue, gross revenue, whatever; the ability to assess it, to scrutinize it if you will, is not the same as applying liability. It's not the same as attaching liability. What do we mean by that? Well a perfect example of this would be somebody who has some sort of money, some sort of funds whatever, that may be covered under a Double Tax Agreement with Thailand wherein they've already paid tax on that in another jurisdiction and Thailand, through their double tax agreement, has to honour that tax credit and therefore while Thailand can assess whether or not that person owes money in Thailand, they may not be found to have any liability for taxes here in the Kingdom. That's the big difference, and I think people aren't really understanding that, that just because they may be able to assess you, does not mean you may necessarily be liable for any taxes. 

I've talked about this at length as regards retirees where I've said look the vast majority of retirees here in Thailand are not going to the impacted by any of these recent changes in policy, - which there hasn't been a major change in policy other than a change as of January 1 regarding assessability, again the ability to look at someone's assets or someone's money if they have come in to Thailand. Now assessing, again is not the same as liability if you are covered by a Double Tax Agreement or for example if it's not even revenue, if it is not capital gains, it's just your money and you're moving it to Thailand; it is just an asset you've owned for ages or maybe you inherited it sometime ago and you are bringing it into Thailand and it has no tax, Thailand is unable to attach any tax liability. They may be able to scrutinize it; they may be able to assess it, but assessment is not the same as attaching liability here in the Kingdom of Thailand.