Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing the recently promulgated and now hotly discussed sort of memorandum if you will, policy memorandum if you will that has been promulgated with regard to tax policy here in Thailand. What am I talking about here? Well this came to my attention through our various channels and I do appreciate the folks that shoot through emails and say "Hey heads up on this. This might pertain to foreigners, you might want to talk about it." Thanks to those folks. I got two emails already this is at the time of this video, I think it came out today, in fact yeah it came out September 18th, so I had two people already this afternoon on September 18th, let me know that this had come out and I went ahead and made these; I am pretty much making three videos all at once here to provide further insight to folks based on what we know now. 

Now in the first video I have already made, I explained "look let's not freak out, this is one of those things; policy changes occur. Oftentimes they are far more incremental than they seem at first glance." So obviously when you are in the Press, clicks are important, eyeballs are important so you are going to, I hesitate to say engage in hyperbole but you are going to sensationalize a little bit because that is what you do, so I get that. But look, how this plays out in practice versus what we are talking about at this particular moment where the hype is all up are probably two very different things. So let's start there. That said, a recent article from Thai Enquirer, that is thaienquirer.com and as usual I urge folks that are watching this video go check that article in detail, a lot of great insight there, they did break this as far as I know so good to go over there and look at that on those folks' website. Article titled: Thai Government to tax all income from abroad for tax residents starting 2024. Quoting directly: "Thailand's Revenue Department has released new guidelines which will see all income from abroad taxed as personal income tax regardless of whether it was earned income or savings. A senior official at the Ministry of Finance confirmed a document released by the Revenue Department over the weekend was accurate. Quoting further: "According to the document, "...those that have earnings from occupation or business abroad or wealth that is located abroad... and has brought these assets into Thailand... must factor this into their personal income tax for the year."

First off let's start, "must factor this into their personal income tax" That has a lot of meanings. Double Tax Treaties may apply as noted in this article; foreign tax credits depending on the jurisdictions you are talking about may apply, so factoring in does not necessarily mean larger actual tax payout, so view that for what it is there. 

Next, quoting further, and I think this is more relevant to this video, quote: "The program will begin January 1, 2024," so that is noteworthy, it is not immediate, you have time to make plans on this thing, quoting further: "and apply only to tax residents in Thailand, meaning tourists and short-term workers will be exempt. Also exempt will be those who have been taxed in a foreign country that has a standing Double Tax Agreement with Thailand."

So wow, a lot to factor in there folks, just a whole bunch to factor in there. Again "tax resident" has a lot of different meanings depending on jurisdiction. Here in Thailand, it specifically means a certain amount of time spent in the territory of Thailand. Now I am not going to go into past analysis on that because if this is indeed changing I am not sure that the definition of tax resident might not change as well, so we might end up with a differentiation in terms of the Tax Resident Scheme. It may require more time and Thailand because the possibility of tax liability goes up for those who spend a predominant amount of their time here. I don't know exactly how this is going to look, how this is going to play out. So for now, understand that yes it appears the policy on foreigners in Thailand with regard to their worldwide income and with regard to their worldwide assets, may be in a different posture with respect to tax liability in Thailand today as of well let's say January 1 of 2024 they may be in a different posture then they currently are today. That is what we know is that that may be a possibility; that's what we know as of the time of this video. 

That said, further analysis is necessary which we will get into and again further clarification regarding the factoring in to one's taxes here in Thailand, further clarification regarding "tax residents" and exactly what that means, and then further clarification regarding how these things are going to impact people based on their differing nationalities and the underlying Double Tax Treaties associated with those nationalities remains to be seen. We will certainly keep you updated on this channel as the situation evolves.