Transcript of the above video: 

A lot of people seem to think I am like a pro tax guy or something like this, I'm not. I am a tax attorney in the United States; I'm an American Tax Attorney licensed in the Tax Court; I do provide some advisory services regarding tax. I've talked a lot about tax on this channel but bear in mind I am not some grand proponent who thinks tax in and of itself is necessary or is legitimate all of the time. No, in fact there are scenarios that I can see where tax is not necessarily warranted or the levying of taxes is not in the best interest of folks, nor do I believe that there is any inherent obligation to pay tax. I have noticed that being talked about a lot as Thailand specifically is sort of flirting with the notion of joining the OECD and is going through the motions of "harmonization", this whole notion that tax is somehow an inherent obligation on you because you are born, it's just nonsense. 

Now that said, I do believe that there are circumstances where taxes are warranted and they go toward paying for things like infrastructure and living in a civilized society, roads and stuff like that. I get it, but again that doesn't mean I am just a "tax everyone all the time and I am a big lover of taxes". 

That said, I thought of making this video after reading a recent article in the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Trying to create a fairer property tax. I'm always fascinated when the folks out there that love taxes start talking about "fairness" in taxation. It's always kind of an oxymoron. Quoting directly: "The Finance Ministry is reviewing the Land and Building Tax Act. Public hearings were conducted to gather opinions from the public and stakeholders. The law has been in effect for 5 years." Yeah interesting that. How it was promulgated was a little bit questionable, let's put it that way. That said, moving on, quoting further: "Marking a significant phase in reforming the country's property based tax regime." Well do we need a property based tax regime here in Thailand? I would argue one of the strong selling points of Thailand for me when I first got here is it effectively didn't really have Property Tax, not the way that we know it in the west. They have transfer taxes associated with selling or buying Thai property or conveyancing property if you will but before 5 years ago there wasn't any real tax burden on any particular property. Nowadays little bit different. Again most Westerners would love it here because on residences there is effectively no property on residences worth under a certain amount of money. 

That said, I find property tax to be very pernicious just in general and notice who loves property taxes the most? The Marxists! Just saying, I am just saying. Quoting further: "Finance Permanent Secretary Lavaron Sangsnit said the amended version of the land and building tax law will represent a major reform in the country's property tax laws." Quoting further: "Unused land carries the highest tax rate, described in the law as "vacant land not used appropriately." Again when you get into this talk of tax, if it was just straight up and said "look we are going to take a piece because we got to build this road, or we have got to pay for infrastructure, we have got to pay for National Defense", whatever, I wouldn't have any problem with it. It's when they start getting into how you use your own property and we are going to influence how you use your own property via tax policy, that's where it starts to irk me quite a little bit. Quoting further: "Which is taxed on an initial rate of 0.3%. For instance, land valued at a million Baht would incur a tax of 3,000 Baht." and again on your own land. I get taxes are needed. That said, there are good taxes if you will. It is interesting Trump recently was talking about tariffs, replacing the current tax system in the United States with tariffs which probably is something of a long shot, but people kind of forget that there was a time when for example the United States didn't really have any taxes especially with regard to property. In fact it was in the Constitution, the original draft that was later amended, that there could be no property tax in the United States, but somebody in the meantime, in their infinite wisdom, decided to go ahead and amend the Constitution to change that in the US. 

That said, we are talking about here in Thailand and look, again I understand the need for taxes, but this notion that they are inherently not only necessary, but they are inherently a requirement of people just for existing or owning property, I have real qualms with that notion.