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Does A Yellow House Book Impact Tax Residence For Foreigners In Thailand?
Transcript of the above video:
As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing so-called Yellow House Books. For those who are unaware, Yellow House books or foreign Tabian Baans or Yellow Tabian Baans - Tabian Baan means house registration - this is a book, we have done many videos on this in the past. Oftentimes Thais will have a Blue book, it's sort of an elongated, rectangular book and that is sort of the root key document if you will to Thai identity, it is the root Thai Identity document I would argue. Children when they are born, they get a Birth Certificate and then you immediately need generally speaking, to put them on to your Tabian Baan so that they now have a registered household here in the Kingdom.
Now it is possible for foreign nationals to obtain what is called a Yellow Tabian Baan or a Yellow House book which is what is intended for foreigners. As we have discussed in other videos, there has been some confusion in the past regarding the Yellow House Book's impact on Thai immigration. It has none. As we discussed in prior analysis the Yellow House Book was created pursuant to the Civil Registration Act of 1991 and it has no bearing on Immigration.
The question posed by this video is, "does it have any bearing on tax residency!" Based on my initial analysis along with lawyers here in the firm, and by the way, to all the trolls out there, I have never claimed to be a Thai lawyer. Listen to what I say in these videos! I have always said I am an American Attorney; I am the Managing Director of the firm. The Thai lawyers handle Thai legal matters here in the office as well as Thai Attorneys which by the way you can get into a whole back and forth as to the analysis of what is a Thai Attorney, what is a Thai lawyer, the translations and definitions thereof, I am not getting into that; I have always claimed to be what I am; I am an American Attorney. And again, I have been very vocal about this as well, non-Thais should not be talking about Thai Law at all really, nor should they be providing advice or consultation in any way, shape or form. And I have posted previously the documentation pertaining to the Government's regulation and more specifically, restriction of foreigners engaging in that activity. In fact I may go ahead and just put it up in the description or in one of the comments again because I keep getting a bunch of hate for that. I am just calling it how it is on that particular topic.
Meanwhile back to what we are talking about here, Yellow House Books, how do they interact with tax policy? Really not much at all. It's very similar analysis in my opinion as well as the opinion of those folks here in the office that I have discussed this with, that it doesn't really have any impact. It's very similar to the lack of impact having a Yellow House book has on one's Immigration status. Tax Matters are dealt with under a different set of statutes than the Civil Registration Act of '91 which created Yellow House books.
For all intents and purposes for a foreigner here in Thailand, a Yellow House book is effectively an ID document; it doesn't really have anything to do with your tax status nor does it have much of anything to do with your Immigration status here in the Kingdom of Thailand.