Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing Thai Work Permits in the context of expat tax issues. I use the term "territorial tax" or "territorial taxation", I am using that euphemistically. There are legal ramifications depending on the jurisdiction you are from to that phraseology. Don't read anything into this. I am talking about this in a very general sense; this is general information only. This is not specified tax advice. 

What I am talking about here though is in certain jurisdictions especially a lot of the Commonwealth jurisdictions, the United States is kind of a different animal. US citizens are taxable on their worldwide income and for that reason the issue of where they are physically located, although it does factor into things like the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion, is not dispositive to their tax liability overall. So Americans, this video really isn't very much for you. 

Who I am talking to basically here is folks oftentimes from the Commonwealth jurisdictions that have a tax system that is largely based on where their domicile is and one of the issues and again I am not a tax expert from Commonwealth jurisdictions but we have seen it. I have talked to folks, oftentimes it is because they are very eager to get their Work Permit issued, and different jurisdictions, I have talked to folks from Australia, Canada, not so much UK, I didn't notice that eagerness with those folks, somebody from one of the European jurisdictions at one point, they are just very, very eager to go ahead and get their Work Permit issued. I basically asked "why is this such a major deal?" Basically in their circumstances they wanted to get it issued by a certain calendar date so that they could establish that they were living abroad, and it also seems to be depending on the jurisdiction you are dealing with, that you are being taxed by another jurisdiction, that is something that factors into the overall analysis so they wanted that done sooner rather than later. Again, they had their own reasons for it. We are just dealing with the Thai side of things but I thought it was interesting. It can factor in. Whether or not you have a Work Permit, you are paying income tax in Thailand which essentially comes part parcel with the Work Permit because with the Work Permit you are going to be paying some sort of statutorily required tax depending on where you are from; the amount may vary but there will be some kind of income tax.

Long story short, and what I am trying to get at is there are folks that are eager to be paying some Thai taxes because it can have implications in either their home jurisdiction or their jurisdiction of prior residence and they are trying to go ahead and do their tax planning in such a way that they can best mitigate, in a legal manner, best mitigate their tax liability presumably as much as possible.