Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are asking the question, basically can you be taxed just for using a credit card in Thailand? Wow, I'm seeing this; I've gotten emails on this specific question. Apparently, there's some convoluted analysis out there; I'm going to break it down like this. 

I did a video contemporaneously with this one where we discussed whether or not merely making a bank wire transaction is a taxable event. And as I discussed in that video, the bank wire itself is just a medium of moving the capital. It's the intention of the funds, it's why the money is being moved, the intention of the funds being moved across the bank wire system that is what needs to be analyzed. So, is the underlying set of money being sent for a gift? Is it being sent for an investment? Is it being sent as a salary? What is it being sent for? That's what you have to analyze when you are looking at like a bank wire transaction. 

Now there is a lot of stuff going around where people are talking about, 'oh you may be taxable’, and this, frankly when I started hearing this through the ether of the internet, and let me be clear, I will do a follow-up video on this if people want to see it because I want to do some further analysis and kind of see how this plays out, especially in light of the fact that Trump is coming into office in the United States. Now directly that's not overly pertinent to Thailand because again Thailand is an independent nation, but it was Janet Yellen who pushed this Global Minimum Tax which unfortunately seemed to kind of infect the mind of our former Prime Minister Srettha here after presumably going to the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland. But long story short, they were talking about this Global Minimum Tax stuff here in Thailand.

Yellen has now gone, and she was the big sort of prime mover behind that notion of “Global Minimum Tax”; I've done the videos on that. I don't even agree with the notion that by dint of being born you somehow owe some sort of taxes; I don't buy that. Long story short though, she's on her way out; we're seeing Trump come in. We don't know exactly what's coming down the pike so anybody that is talking to you in specifics right now or is speaking in absolutes, be very careful with that. I especially also note that in people who use one-size-fits-all analysis to say, 'oh everybody has to file this, or everybody has to go get that', that's very dangerous thinking especially in times like these. 

Now that being stated where are we heading moving forward? I don't know. And as I have discussed in other videos, we'll get into that, but the purpose of this video is I just want to talk conceptually about how credit cards work because somebody said, 'oh well if you get money using a credit card in Thailand, then you owe tax on it in Thailand," and apparently there is some analysis on this out there. I'm not making this to get into direct conflict with whoever is espousing that. All I'm doing is asking a question and that question is, ‘if you are getting money off of a credit card, that's a loan. So how is it income to then be taxable, okay?’ Now if you're using a credit card to buy something, someone is extending you credit to then get this item that you will then pay them back later. Now if you pay them back with no interest did anything happen? No. It's not a taxable event. It's as if you used your own money; you just used credit in the meantime. Now if you pay it back with interest, there may be some taxes owed on the interest to whoever you pay back. That may be the case. But again, I am talking about this purely conceptually. How does usage of a credit card create a situation where you gained any income? If anything has happened, a loan has occurred. Now if you don't pay back the loan, if they forgive the loan down the line, then yes, I could see that scenario would then result in that converting from being an outstanding loan you need to repay, to income, because you didn't have to pay it back. 

But again, I don't understand the logic and frankly I don't really see where it's there, of the notion that by dint of using a credit card in and of itself is some sort of taxable event.