Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing Bangkok Pat, another YouTuber and actually a YouTuber I am quite a fan of. I want to be clear, I'm not making this video to be hyper-critical of Bangkok Pat; again tip of the hat to you sir, I'm quite a fan. I like what you do; I like that you provide insight on the history especially of different places here in Bangkok, it's very innovative. I really enjoy those videos so let me just be clear, I am not making this video to be hyper, hyper-critical but you do have an audience and you were talking about matters pertaining to tax very briefly in an otherwise longer video. I urge those who are watching this video go check out his video. We will put up the screenshot on our screen here and I don't have time to deal with all the linking all the time but that said, because we are referring to something directly, here on YouTube, I will go ahead and throw up the link up in the description below back over to his channel to that specific video where he talked about tax.  

It comes up around about the 23 minute mark and just a couple of things first of all and I'm quoting: Enforcement coming into effect January 2024. Again I don't mean to be pedantic or semantic and again I am not being hyper-critical but I think people need to understand what's going on here so they can have the right paradigm and they can prepare themselves. So just from my notes here, "It's not an enforcement measure, strictly speaking. It's a change in regulations regarding the timing of inbound remittances". A lot of people think that this is some massive change within the Thai Tax structure. In a way for foreigners, it has a disproportionate impact so I understand why they think that. But again, to be clear we are not talking about a change in the enforcement endeavours of the Revenue Department or the various agencies here in Thailand which deal with tax collection, it's not an enforcement difference. It is a difference in terms of the regulation prior to Jan 1, 2024. If you did not bring money into Thailand within the same calendar year as it was accrued, you didn't necessarily have to be assessed for taxability. Starting January 1, 2024, timing of when you accrued funds became irrelevant to whether or not they were assessable for taxation. That's the big difference; that's the change that has occurred. Again not an enforcement thing; the enforcement mechanism has not changed at all. Quoting further: "Only people "busted" - excuse me, I am not quoting there - but he mentions in the video that: "only people "busted" will be small fish". It is kind of the classic - and I see his point completely - the people with the resources to plan their taxes in such a way that they are tax efficient or they can avoid certain taxes, yeah they tend to be higher net worth people and then his presumption there is the vast majority people who would be “busted” by this would be sort of lower down the socioeconomic strata. I don't see that as the case and again it comes from this notion that this is an enforcement thing. It's not, it's a reassessment of well tax assessability, tax liability. It doesn't have anything to do with enforcement. So this notion that like the Revenue Department is going out and looking for people without means to "bust" them for some sort of tax violation, that's really not what's going on here. 

The other thing is - this is just one of my own personal sort of bug bears if you will - the use of the term loophole. He said, "oh the folks with more financial resources will be able to find a loophole." There aren't any loopholes in the law. There is just the law; it is what it is. I always find that term especially from lay people, they say that all the time, "oh there is a loophole, there is a loophole!" No, it's just the law, it is just the way it is. 

So again, not to make sort of a semantic point about that, but the point I am trying to make with this video and what I'm hoping people will understand is again this is not as big a change as people think it is. In fact I kind of now lament doing the initial video where we talked about this because people have sort of taken it wildly out of context and it's kind of scaring people and I get it, taxes scare people. Tax Policy does not make people, it's not a happy topic. Again I think Bangkok Pat did a good job of bringing up people's sort of fears and things but again, I really don't think, as a practical matter, the vast majority of people, especially foreigners who are just wanting to retire here in Thailand or live and work whatever, are really going to be negatively impacted by this at the end of the day. Yes, maybe some higher net worth individuals that are bringing large amounts of money for various transactions or especially corporations: this really is aimed by the way at Corporations with Branch presence here in Thailand or a Head Office in Thailand and branches abroad. In fact Head Offices in Thailand with branches abroad seems to be what their specifically focusing upon. 

Now what you need to understand in this video though is, yes certain individuals might get pulled under that rubric but again it's not an enforcement thing. They are not running around looking to ‘bust’ people with regard to this. It simply comes down to your own personal tax situation and whether or not you would owe anything. And there are ways to plan and prepare one's tax set up in such a way that you can mitigate against even these changes in policy regarding the assessment of tax liability, there are ways of dealing with that. So the thing to take away from this video is - again hats off to Bangkok Pat, love your videos - but I think you were just, it is not so much off base, but I think you are making some presumptions that a lot of folks in the public I have noticed have been making lately.