Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing whether or not Thailand seems to be hellbent if you will, sort of its heart set on raising the worst form of tax. First of all, what are we talking about when we say the 'worst form of tax', because I think there are a lot of people out there who would say "well, all form of tax is bad."

Look, I'm a realist, I'm not going to sit here and say that I am in love with paying taxes, or I like the notion of paying taxes, I don't, it's just sort of the nature of the beast. It's something you kind of have to put up with, and in certain situations I find certain tax policy to be rather reasonable. In other situations not so much, but what's the notion of the worst form of tax? Well different taxes tax different things. You can get me to even understand the argument if I don't even agree with it, but I can at least understand the argument of some form of tax. A perfect example, property tax. Sometimes you'll hear people say "well we want to create a property tax to give people an impetus to do something with their property, so it creates cash flow, creates value’, or to that effect. And if you have a property tax it sort of lights of fire under people to go do something. I would turn back around say well that's also slavery because effectively you're compelling someone to do something they might not otherwise do but for your action i.e. the tax itself. But again, I can at least understand the argument behind Property Tax. "Hey, we're trying to spur innovation, we're trying to spur development, therefore we have created a tax.” Again, not to say I agree with it, I just understand the argument. With regard to “Value” Added Tax, I don't even understand the argument, because what you should be doing in an economy is encouraging the addition of value. By creating a value-added tax, you discourage it. Now how did VAT come about in Thailand? It came about basically it's my understanding in the '90s with the end of the tax certificate regime that was here prior to that. When they imposed VAT, they said "oh we'll get rid of tax certification". For those who are unaware of what tax certification is, I've done a number of videos on this channel on that topic in the past. Go ahead and go into the search function of our channel, search tax certification, tax certificate and you'll see what I'm talking about when I talk about that old regime. The VAT came in and sort of replaced that. In my opinion the 7% VAT that we have had here in Thailand - which by the way it is supposed to be 10 but they “temporarily” kept it down to 7 for some multi decades now, it's my understanding - that 7% VAT, honestly I don't really notice it and most folks that maintain a business here, it's not as bad a thing as most folks sometimes get upset about when they talk about taxes. Effectively the way I look at it is we effectively in Thailand have a 7% sales tax across the board; that's sort of how I look at it. We've gotten used to it. That said, they are talking about raising and as we have discussed in prior videos, I want to preface this video by saying this does not appear to be happening and it definitely does not appear to be a foregone conclusion, but they're talking about it. They talked about it, then they kind of rolled it back, and now they're kind of still talking about it. My personal opinion is this is political suicide. Any government that tries to up the VAT like they are talking about, you might as well just pack your bags because you're not going to be the Government for much longer. 

That being said, I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Thai Examiner, that is thaiexaminer.com, the article is titled: OECD tax changes and other moves at the heart of growing rifts appearing in Thailand's Government. Well, I don't know that rift is the right word. Maybe there are just certain folks in the Thai Government, the coalition or Parliament in general, who are concerned about their constituents and don't see why we have to kowtow to some International, supernational organization, i.e. the OECD, in terms of having to change all of our laws, all of our tax policy to do what? To then have to give foreign aid to “developing” nations that we never actually, the loan never gets paid back, so that we can go on the hook to some supranational lender that then Thailand's taxpayers have to continue to pay them off forever. Because that's the way the OECD has worked. Anybody that wants to know, people that are like "well it's sort of an American Organization", no it's not. Any international organization in my mind is not American, it's just a supranational organization. A great book to read about this is a book - we'll slap it up here on screen an image of it - Confessions of an Economic Hitman. Every time I hear OECD I just think of that book, Confessions of an Economic Hitman. 

That being said, I thought of making this video again after reading a recent article from Thai Examiner, quoting directly: "Another significant step by that Cabinet saw a 15% minimum tax for corporate players agreed upon." This is agreed upon in principle. Thanks again Thai Examiner for reporting this as if it is a foregone conclusion, or as if this is a change to relevant Thai Law. It is not. As we discussed in other videos, there has been no promulgated law change with regards to Thailand's Tax Policy, and quoting from Thai Examine itself, from the article titled: 15% VAT plan withdrawn over fierce backlash. Thailand needs time and patience for tax reform. Quoting directly: "A 15% VAT tax plan for Thailand was scrapped after public outcry." That said, going back to the original article, quoting further: "This new tax applies to large multinational corporations with a turnover over $750 million." I don't believe you. You always say it like this. "Oh, it's only the big guys, it's never you little people,"- and then it turns out to be everybody. So first of all they scrapped this thing. Now they are trying to resuscitate a corpse apparently, and again, who wants this? I don't see any constituency in Thailand clamouring for 15% VAT in any capacity. Big corporations, little corporations, anybody. Meanwhile, big corporations that slap that 15% VAT on are just passing it on to us consumers, so we have to pay it anyway. It's like when they talk about tariffs in the United States, who's going to pay for that? The consumer is going to pay for that. Quoting further: "It was another step towards Thailand joining…" - steps towards Thailand joining, - Thailand has not joined the OECD and quite honestly Parliament, I think you need to start making moves to roll this back because I don't see who wants to join this and I don't see how this is good for Thailand. Quoting further: "…joining the ranks of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The move is part of a range of measures the government has agreed with the OECD." What agreed? You have said we are looking at this; we're talking about it. We didn't agree to join, we agreed to a Memorandum of Understanding that we would look into it. It's not looking too good. Why don't we look at turning this thing around? It's like the old trans-pacific partnership, the TPP. Thailand looked at that and ultimately decided, "hey that's not in anybody's interest, let's roll it back." Quoting further: "It follows a road map drawn up by the Paris-based international organization in June." So what? Thailand is taking orders from Paris now? Is that what we are? We are a colony of Paris? Quoting further: "In short, Thailand is hoping to become a full-fledged member of the OECD." Who in Thailand? What part of Thailand is hoping to be a member of the OECD? 90% of the rank-and-file Thais you talk to probably don't even know what OECD is and if you explained what it is, I'm pretty sure they will all tell you "no, we're not interested in being part of that." Meanwhile the other 10% of the population that does know what it is, well there's "rifts" in that population because not everybody wants to be subsumed by this supranational organization called OECD and we all effectively become colonies of Paris.

I don't know about you, but I am tired of this globalist nonsense. I'm tired of it being rolled out through the press as if it is a foregone conclusion, and I am tired of it being imposed upon Thailand with quite frankly very little input from the public at large, here in the Kingdom of Thailand.