Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing the possibility of increasing Capital Gains Taxes on foreigners here in Thailand. So specifically we are talking about this in the context of real estate. As we have discussed in many other videos, it is illegal for foreigners to own land in Thailand so no matter what other people say, you'll hear all kinds of people "yes" you to death about "oh yeah, no this isn't a problem; here, there and everywhere, we can do whatever we want." I've discussed this many, many times. Foreigners are restricted from owning land in Thailand. Now there are discreet exceptions to that as we have discussed. Since the turn of the millennium, there were rules put into place basically at the behest of the International Monetary Fund and even then they were only used in a couple of  anomalous circumstances that pertain to sort of foreign entities looking to do certain types of business activity here in Thailand. Long story short, as a practical matter, foreign nationals are prohibited from owning land in Thailand.

That said they can own condos and as we discussed in other videos, the Thai Condominium Act does allow foreign nationals to gain what we would call in the American vernacular Fee Simple Absolute Title over a Thai condo, oftentimes referred to in the Australian legal vernacular as Freehold Title and in the Thai vernacular, generally speaking we refer to this as Chanote Title. It all means basically the same thing. You have the title deed; you own that condo; you have an interest in the common areas of the condo complex as well. That said, there's now discussion about increasing taxes on foreigners associated with condo ownership. I thought of making this video making this video after reading a recent article from Khao Sod English, that is khaosodenglish.com, the article is titled: Expert Urges Government to Raise Tax for Foreign Condo Buyers. Quoting directly: "He proposed four types of property taxes on foreigners based on market transaction prices (rather than government assessed values)..." Yeah, this is always a fun one where the Government comes out and assesses you and even if they don't like their own assessment, for tax purposes they will just come back and make up some other number and say "well that's market determined.” Well you get it both ways? You get the tax on market determination when you feel like it or tax on whatever you just say, whenever you feel like it? In any event, quoting further: "..to raise revenue to boost the economy and increase funds for national development." 

As I have said in other videos that I made contemporaneously with this one, only somebody very, very close to the government could view taxation as "boosting" the economy. I don't know where taxes boost anything in the economy. If anything they extract capital and wealth from the economy - which was probably putting that capital to productive use - and moves it over to something that may be productive use. Quoting further: "Capital Gains Tax on resale: With a rate of 10 to 20 percent or 100,000 to 200,000 Baht per million baht."

So right now we already have property taxes associated with condos in Thailand including transfer taxes as well but the Government in their infinite wisdom, I think I saw a meme recently that said "only the Government who has the ability to extract wealth from their citizens, (they were talking about the US Government) could be able to do that and still go bankrupt." I'm often just flabbergasted by that notion but lo and behold they're able to do it. Again, to extract huge amounts of capital gains on condos, this is not a great idea; this just isn't a very good idea because look if we're looking for foreign demand in Thai condos, increasing the tax rates especially the creation of a substantial Capital Gains Tax which we have already got something in place called the Specific Business Tax for so-called "hot money" coming in and buying property and then flipping it very quickly, do we really need a substantial Capital Gains Tax?

Meanwhile come on Thailand, look at the West. You can see this. Just taxing everything in sight and taxing people effectively out of their own property has done no good economically. I mean the proof is literally in the pudding if you will - I guess that's not a literal statement, it's a metaphor - but the proof is in the pudding over there. You can just see it. This taxation and then we're going to do these other things, it's not working. At the end of the day, if you want to drive foreign demand in condos, okay some reasonable taxes, the transfer tax whatever, but to tack on a massive Capital Gains Tax, I think it's just going to drive away possible buyers here in the Kingdom of Thailand.