Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, I'm talking about sort of a moratorium if you will on this channel. I'm only talking about myself here in this channel with regard to talking about Thai Tax and I'm going to take, call it 2 weeks off. I'm standing here March 21, 2025, I'm going to take a couple weeks off on talking about it on the channel. Let's be clear, we still are in the office doing what we have always done with regard to Tax matters here in Thailand, and consultations, same appointments, things apply. I have done a lot of videos on Tax. I'm not worried about my exposure regarding marketing on tax. Now that said, why am I doing this?

Well a couple of different reasons. One, let's talk about this purely from the sort of broader perspective here. One, this is how things like this happen in Thailand. I don't know how you would want to call it. It's not exactly the legislative process although that's some of it; it's sort of also the implementation process, maybe you can call it the promulgation process but that's not correct here, because as we've discussed in other videos, we're not actually seeing changes to laws. What we have seen is some changes to rules, but in terms of fundamental law, it is my understanding, no, we have seen some internal rule changes, and I need to back up even further. I'm talking about all of this from a purely speculative sort of outsider's perspective, which I have always tried to be very clear about. I'm simply here providing exposition if you will in the English language. I am an American Attorney, I am an American Tax Attorney; I am licensed in the Tax Courts; I have background dealing with taxes especially as it pertains to the US-Thai Treaty of Amity and the analysis associated therewith, okay. I am a Thai national, I'm a Thai citizen, I became Thai, whatever it was, 7 years ago, I was naturalized but I'm a layman in Thailand, okay. I have a legal background. Again, you could have a JD as a born Thai and I don't think anybody would even care, but it is worth pointing out my particular position. I am making another video contemporaneously with this one discussing sort of operating in the breach, affirmative freedoms, affirmative rights versus sort of negative liberty, which I'll get into in another video. But for purposes of this video, understand where I have always been coming from on this. And I have always made it abundantly clear that I am not going to get up here and die on any hill where I give any explicit advice or instruction if you will or recipe which that is how a lot of these charlatans present things, is as if the law was a recipe and it did not have an interpretive process associated with it. And that is why these charlatans are problematic, okay. 

So back to what I was originally talking about. The point I'm trying to make here is there is always a process here in Thailand of change with regard to any kind of rules. Any expat that has been here for any period of time; myself I've been here going on 18 years, I've seen like six iterations of major policy within the Thai Immigration system. Now we haven't seen a lot of major changes that anybody on the street level, especially in the expat community, was ever talking about in terms of tax until in my opinion, undo foreign influence came in and started stirring that pot. Now that kind of leads in to another point, but the point I am trying to make here is one of the reasons I want to be quiet right now about this is because sometimes, and again I think any expat especially those who keep an eye on the Visa situation, the evolution of Immigration Policy, will tell you every now and again there's things that they kind of throw out there in sort of a narrative sense and sort of see what's going to stick if you will, okay. And that is kind of where we are at. We're seeing now okay where is the rubber going to hit the road? Thailand, and I want to be explicit on this, Thai Officials have apparently said yes certain policies are changing. With regard to that, I'm not going to sit here and contravene any Thai Official. Now that said, I don't exactly know what they are saying, I'm not looking that deeply into that at this particular moment, okay. Now we do analysis on case specific issues, when people call in and say hey here's my facts. Basically, I sort of work here in tandem, my wife who also works here in the office is a Thai Registered Accountant. We have other Accountants here in the office; we have Thai Attorneys here that deal with Tax Law on a very detailed basis. We sort of all operate together if you will in order to provide information to those people in a consultative manner so that they understand what's going on in their specific case. But I'm not running around out here saying these people need to do X, these people need to do Y. I've never done it; I've never claimed to do that. 

Now again, as I've discussed in many other videos, I think that there was a concerted global putsch toward this supra-nationalist, globalist and by putsch I mean “putsch” in the traditional sense of the term - p-u-t-s-c-h - in sort of an administrative, bureaucratic globalist sense. The WEF has said themselves they want to put infiltrators into the Cabinets; we've gotten into all the Cabinets, Klaus Schwab himself said this, okay. and there was a globalist putsch if you will, or coup if you want to use that term - although I think it gets thrown around unnecessarily a lot - for this supra-nationalist, globalist, minimum tax sort of setup. And as I have discussed in other videos, I think it infringes to say the least on Thai sovereignty especially as it pertains to tax. I don't think it's good policy; I think it's very, very bad. But that being said, that is sort of, it's not tangential, it's actually an issue integral to my analysis of the whole thing, but understand from an expat perspective, those who are looking at tax, looking at their situation, where are we right now? Well we're in a situation where we are seeing exactly how the rubber is hitting the road now, okay. And moving forward, we are going to have a better idea or more clarity if you will, as to exactly how things are going to work. And I have discussed this. It has implications. The TM6 is coming out, the new digital version of that, we don't exactly know what that looks like. Clearly Immigration has sort of swept aside certain, it looked me like proto-programs if you will that they were looking at putting in in sort of a broader integrated global tax sort of structure, it looks to me like what they were trying to do had to do with that, and it did not come off it looks like, as culminated, or as best example being if you will President Trump's Executive Order where he directly said, "we're not doing this, and actually we are recapturing our sovereignty in the American context. It has extra-territorial ramifications associated with it; it is illegitimate; we're not doing it; they are out." That has ramifications then on any analysis pertaining to the US-Thai Treaty relationship especially as it can pertain to tax. So again, that can have implications on any specifically narrow-tailored advice regarding these issues. Again though, the point I'm trying to make is we are going through this transition. We're sort of watching it in real time what's happening here and I don't think it's appropriate in any way for foreigners at all to commenting on this. This is a domestic Thai matter and that brings me to number two. So that's the objective issue here and that's where I stand with regard to a Moratorium anyway. That was my plan anyhow was, "hey we're not going to be saying much of anything about this as it starts being implemented." If you look back at my body of work, that also occurs as well with Immigration. When we see new policies come in, you'll watch, I give a fair bit of time before I start deeply analyzing and commenting. A perfect example of this in recent history is the DTV, and I know you guys get all mad at me over the DTV, but my analysis was not off, and as we are seeing, also my broader analysis this past year that hey they always sort of ease up during high season and then they constrict going into low season, that is bearing out. We're seeing that in terms of the changes with regard to policy on Visa exemptions etc. The point I'm trying to make, this is standard operating procedure for me. When I see new policy coming down the pike, I tend to back off and have a look at it for a while, before I start commenting on it again. And this is my other problem with what I have referred to as stamp-pimps in the past and will continue to do so unless and I will respect and defer to any Court here in Thailand as is my civic duty, but I also consider it my civic duty to note and bring it to the forefront, when I see people who are intentionally in my opinion trying to subvert tax policy here in Thailand and trying to direct it perhaps to their own ends, perhaps for petty profit, perhaps for other things, perhaps for other ends. I don't know, okay. This came on my radar; this came within if you would my bailiwick or my sort of purview when it started frankly affecting my rice bowl on a personal level, but then as I started to back out of it and looked at it from a more broad perspective, I realized how important this is. This is not a mess-around thing, okay. There are economic implications regarding this for the country in a broad sense. Professional jobs as is outlined in Thai Law need to be reserved for Thais. 

Meanwhile, tax policy and the impetus behind tax policy, any momentum in the political sphere and that needs to be understood. Look, there are, and I have operated in this in the past where it is appropriate to have foreign opinions regarding how Thai Law might interact with a foreign jurisdiction’s law, for example. That's a purely legal set of analysis and for a duly qualified professional, an attorney for example, a foreign Attorney who is saying okay, well okay Thai Law is, but this is how this interacts with this law on Italy, or Canada or the USA, wherever, that is one thing, okay. But to come to Thailand and to become actively involved in pushing change to Thai Tax Policy as a foreigner, that's a real problem and to do it especially as an agent of a foreign Tax Service, what is going on there? Those are my issues, so that brings me to number two and, another, this isn't exactly a reason for the moratorium but I'm going to do it because I remember years ago, it was in Ethics in Law School, Judge Bullock if I recall, and he talked about why there were rules on professionals. And the thinking was we want to be self-governing, and we have to show the public that we can be self-governing. That's the mark of a true professional was what he said in that course. And obviously it stuck with me.

This is one of those instances where perhaps and I'm saying this as a professional, I'm going to be quiet because one, there has been a complaint filed on me on this. I'm prepared to answer it; I'm prepared to defend myself and speak for myself on this matter. I am not changing my opinion on this. I believe this legally; I believe this as deeply as one can is what I'm saying here, okay. So I'm prepared to answer this stuff and again as I have discussed perhaps too hyperbolically, and maybe if I get too upset, I apologize, I do. And I also would like to apologize perhaps for the last month, I have been very overwrought. The first quarter of the year is quite honestly, for lack of a better term, hell on wheels in my line of work. My father used to call it the "mean season". It is the first quarter of the year. You're coming off the hangover of the holiday season, nobody really likes spending money and then you are going in to the horizon of the taxman. I mean it's just not a pleasant time. I apologize to the public if I've been out of order and I have been on a few instances, and there are some individuals that if I saw them and they said, "hey I called you, you ended up on the phone with me and you were way out of order," I would have to say yeah I was, and I would have to apologize to those people. But I do have to say I come by it honestly and this thing, this tax thing, I'm not letting go of this. I'm like a dog on a bone here, because this is wrong, okay. This is just objectively, legally wrong. I can't say it any more. As a lay Thai man, I believe that. As an American professional, I believe that. It just is, so I'm ready to handle that. But another side of sort of a moratorium here as I have discussed, and I just remember old Bullock, he used to say, "hey the mark of a professional is we regulate ourselves, okay". I'm willing to defer to the Courts of the Kingdom here, and obviously I've made that clear in my lifestyle choices but that's a reason for it. So we can see how this plays out and also because maybe the Court has a different take on this. I don't know. I would like to think I'm at least in some level of alignment but I don't know, and that's the nature of the beast at the end of the day; that's the nature of the legal system if you will. 

So the thing to take away from this video is yeah, I'm going to do a moratorium starting, again we're here on March 21 - I'm going to do like 2 weeks off - let's just see how this goes. Again, this doesn't mean we are not doing this work here at the firm. We still have the Accountants, we still have the Attorneys. I'm still here. Again, as and when necessary, we are on hand to do consultations or assist in structuring your corporate setup, however you want to do it whatever. But again, I've said my piece. I'm appreciative of that. I'm appreciative to YouTube that I had the opportunity to do that. So I've said what I'm going to say. I stand by my analysis; I stand by what I've said to this point. I'm prepared to face whatever is coming with regard to that, but for now, just for the viewers out there who may be looking for information, "oh my gosh” next two weeks we are not going to be talking about this. 

Other thing is foreigners out there who have been operating inappropriately, this is probably a good time for sort of, they are talking a lot about ceasefire up in the Ukraine situation, and I don't know what's going on up there, I don't want to get into all of that. But I have described this year as the tax DMZ, maybe this is a time, moratorium is the word I would use for it, but everybody just kind of chill for the next few weeks, while again this process sort of plays out and we all figure out where everything stands moving forward.