Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing recently announced changes to Thai Tax Rules. I have done a number of videos on that, I think anybody watching this video is probably going to be familiar with that. If you are not, just go back into our history here on this channel. Go back about a week ago, the thumbnail is Expat News and it is ALERT: Worldwide Tax Liability, I can't remember the full title but you can go check that out and you can see that there was a change, there was an announced change to how tax liability is assessed here in Thailand based on timing. Not going to go into the details of that but long story short, for those who have watched through the videos, or kind of keeping up, those playing at home if you will, yeah I hadn't really gotten into Double Tax Treaties because quite honestly I think I am going to get burned a little bit in the comments because what can I say about Double Tax Treaties other than they are all different. There is not like a uniform set, there's not one Double Tax Treaty that the whole world has. Different countries have different agreements with Thailand regarding Double Tax issues and they have little peccadillos in them. Some of them are pretty wildly different depending on what that other country's priorities are, sort of in an international business context; some of them are relatively similar but they do have differences. For this reason I am not going to do a video where I do like a "one size fits all" analysis on how Double Tax Treaties are going to operate in light of the recent announcement regarding these changes to how tax liability is assessed here in Thailand because quite honestly it is going to be very different based on nationality. Different folks here in Thailand are going to have different outcomes with regard to assessed tax liability depending on the provisions of the Double Tax Treaty involved. So again, not to make a video where I don't exactly say much other than exactly what I have said which is, it is going to be different from person to person. There may be massive benefits that may accrue to folks as a result of the Double Tax Treaties. 

One point I will say and take this the way I mean it in that it is not going to apply to everybody because everybody's circumstances are different, everybody's financial situation is different, the structure of people's financial situations are often different so again don't take this as a one-size-fits-all comment. But based on what I am reading from the new announcement, based on what I am talking to our tax advisors here in the office, accountants, lawyers here in the office that have spent a lot of time, the only word for them is tax lawyers, they spend virtually all their time dealing with the tax code. The consensus I am hearing is the vast majority, albeit perhaps not all, but the vast majority of retirees are likely covered under the Double Tax Treaty to the point where they should not worry about retiring in Thailand from the standpoint of "oh am I going to have a taxable event in the event that I feel like retiring in Thailand and is this going to be detrimental to me from a tax standpoint." For the most part, it's not. Most people, I would say off the top of my head, just a wild guess, probably 80% of retirees this just is not really going to bother them. That said, again it is kind of early days with this and from what we are seeing of it, there is still a lot of gray area there so I don't want to come out and just tell people, "oh don't worry about it", or neither do I want to come out and say the sky is falling. I hope I got that through in the first video I did on this where I said, look this is not something to panic about because we may see further clarification, in fact I am expecting to see further clarification. I have seen other folks out there kind of implying that that's naïve, that there may not be further clarification but there's no problem anyway because it doesn't pertain to people that for example don't have a Tax ID number. Well as I have discussed in another video, that is probably not the case. Conferral of a Tax ID number is not in and of itself conferral of liability for taxes in Thailand; the two things are not necessarily, there is a correlation but there is not a causational mechanism associated with one or the other. 

That said, the thing to take away from this video is I think a lot of folks are probably perfectly fine under this because their Double Tax Treaty is set up in such a way that it is not really going to have any impact on them but there may be other people that these new changes may have an impact on. So for those who kind of feel a little bit overwhelmed by all of this or they are worried about their tax liability, it may not be a terrible idea to contact a legal professional, gain some insight and guidance into how best to proceed.