Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are posing the question, “Thai Tax Department, Thai Revenue Department, using info from the Immigration Department?” Now let me preface this by saying, everybody do not freak out. I am going to read an email from somebody. This is as of the time of this video purely anecdotal information, but it is information nonetheless that might be of interest to the Expat Community. I'll do some further analysis at the end. That said, quoting directly, again this was an email from a viewer - tip the hat to you. 

Quoting: "Hi Ben, hearing from different sources that the Thai Tax Department is using info from Immigration Department and contacting expats via mail asking why they are not paying tax and giving them three months to pay. Thought maybe you have heard about this and could you do a post on it?" 

No, I haven't heard a thing about this. Let me be clear, not a word. We deal with a lot of matters pertaining to people's immigration documentation; we have dealt with matters pertaining to people's TM30 documentation regarding their address. I think if this was happening - at least here in Bangkok - we definitely would have heard about it. As of the time of this video I haven't heard anything about this; I have talked about this in prior videos. The only time I would get overly concerned about Tax matters from an expat standpoint is at the point which tax documentation becomes a requirement associated with visa extension or renewal. Again, I have talked about this at length many, many times especially in the context of Retirement Visas; retirees seem to be the most concerned about this. Don't blame them by the way. 

But long story short, yeah, if we get to the place where you have got to show tax documentation as part of your visa extension, yeah, I think that's the point at which to take a lot of this nonsense we are hearing, in a lot of the media by the way. My question would be, who are these sources, because we have seen a ton of foreign charlatans come in in the past couple of years spinning up a lot of nonsense about tax liability on foreign nationals in Thailand in order to drum up business for themselves. I've seen a number of people that have talked to these fly-by-night operators who have been told, "oh you have got to file this, you have got to file that, da, da, da, da," and our have looked at it and said, "You don't file anything. What are you worrying about?" Again, it depends on the underlying facts in a giving case. It's not all driven by exactly how much time you have been in Thailand by the way; that is a factor in the analysis but that's not the only factor. So again, I haven't heard anything about this. 

That said, I felt like it was a data point to make a video on. It is not a data point for everybody to panic on, and let's not everybody run around and try and turn this into a real thing as well by flipping out and making it something real. 

Long story short though, no I haven't heard anything about this. I continue to state what I have always stated which is I wouldn't take a lot of people's hyperbolic talk about tax liability in Thailand all that seriously, unless and until such time as tax documentation becomes an integral part of visa application and renewal.