Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing the issue of the tax trap that I see insofar as the LTR Visa. What is the LTR Visa? So-called Long-Term Resident Visa. As we have discussed in many other videos - I may sound like a broken record here - the LTR is not a Resident Visa. Thai Permanent Residence is Lawful Permanent Residence in Thailand. That is a different type of status. That occurs after being in long-term status here in Thailand with work authorization, and having paid taxes to a certain point, and then going through the adjudication process of being adjudicated an immigrant, a landed immigrant or Lawful Permanent Resident here in Thailand. The LTR Visa is not that. It is a different program; think of it as like a long tourist visa basically if you will. 

Now that said, later on they said they had gone ahead and had added work authorization to the LTR Visa. Now as I've discussed in many other videos - and I think I'm kind of the bane of the existence maybe of the folks that created the LTR - I see no authority for them to grant work authorization in the first place, and I continue to wonder why this has been allowed and they have just kind of turned a blind eye on this and not really said anything policy wise, substantively. And then the other day, I was down giving a little talk at the Pattaya City Expats Club and a very nice young woman asked me a question about her friend, and that person's Smart Visa. They were asking things about doing this sort of tax analysis of physical presence in Thailand versus taxable events, and whether or not you needed to go ahead and file taxes, blah, blah. But it got me to thinking because in the prior iteration of the Basel Protocols associated with International Banking that are issued by the Bank for International Settlements - and Basel 3 is the latest one pertaining to Gold by the way as a Tier 1 asset which is very interesting - but there are little ripples that come out of these things in terms of policy, especially in a tax context that can arise especially as it pertains to tax residency. And in the iteration of Basel 2, we saw the creation effectively of what we now refer to as the standard Thai Retirement Visa. Part of that standard Thai Retirement Visa's terms if you will is it is explicitly precluded from work authorization, and it is my opinion that that is specifically tied to Double Tax Agreements and things of that nature, because basically Thailand wants to be able to say, 'hey, whatever you want to say about these people that are here, they are not working here, so therefore you can't start bringing us into this alignment stuff where we have to offset for things occurring here, versus other jurisdictions. Thailand didn't want to do that, so they created this non-work authorized Visa in the form of the Retirement Visa and that just kind of got rid of the whole issue; they just sort of sidestepped the whole issue. 

Well if you think about that in the inverse, where you have something that's inherently work authorized, does that then create more of an impetus in the analysis of whether or not there is tax liability in favour of there being tax liability. What I mean to say is, does work authorization itself in Thailand, tip the scales more in favour toward you being taxed here. I would say even under the prior paradigm to the last roughly two years or so, that that's a definite yes. If you are workout authorized in Thailand, and you are operating in Thailand, and there's money coming at you, the presumption is that is income and that there's going to be some sort of tax liability associated with it. 

So the point I'm trying to make is, as we discussed in other videos, one, I don't like the LTR because you have to stipulate to a tax rate. With the standard O Retirement Visa for example, you don't have to do anything with regard to taxes, stipulation or otherwise. Now that said, people will say well you stipulate to a rate on money earned in Thailand but there's nothing on earned abroad. Well, here's my question. If you remit funds into Thailand on a work authorized visa and you have been here for over 180 days - I don't care what they otherwise say - how could you reasonably argue against them saying that that is funds earned in Thailand. This is my point; I think there's a tax trap inherent in the LTR. I think that it's designed, I mean it's kind of obvious. They have an audit at the five-year mark, which I've done videos on that. They said that. It was in the Bangkok Post; we cited it at the time. So, there's an audit associated with this visa. Then on top of it, it has this “so-called” work authorization that everybody's just kind of letting slide. The question is why? I think the answer to that question is that it augers in favour of saying somebody has tax liability, because whatever money is brought into Thailand could be deemed to have been earned, if that person was in Thailand, had the type of LTR Visa with this "work authorization" and was in the country for the prerequisite period of time to obtain tax residency, I think it's hard to argue that you don't have to pay some sort of tax on remitted funds in under that scenario. 

For this reason yet again, and I thought of that while just doing that talk, and I'm very thankful, tip the hat to that young lady for bringing up the Smart Visa thing, and it got me thinking about work authorization, I said that's just one more argument in favour of why the LTR is a tax trap here in the Kingdom of Thailand.