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Recently on this channel we have been talking a lot about this desire by Immigration Authorities or policymakers here in Thailand generally to attract wealthy individuals, "high net worth" individuals, whatever you want to call it.

It came to my attention in a recent article from ASEAN NOW, that is formally Thai Visa, that is at aseannow.com, the article is titled: Plan to Attract a Million Foreigners Investors Stalls Yet Again: TAX Breaks are the Sticking Point. Quoting directly, and we have discussed this in general in many videos, there is discussion about a 10-year Visa; there is discussion about even longer term visas and all of these concessions but quoting directly: "However the sticking point previously reported and now rearing up again is the proposal that foreigners pay just 17% income tax instead of the usual 35%." They are talking about the progressive tax rate here in Thailand depending on your situation, but 17% tax as the top slot whereas Thai Nationals only have to pay 35%.  

I think that is going to be probably a bridge too far on this. Again this is speculation but I just don't see legislation or regulations coming in that allow foreign nationals to be taxed at a lower rate than Thai nationals in Thailand. It is one aspect of territorial taxation. When a jurisdiction basically says: "If you are on our territory, you are subject to our tax rules". At the same time for example the UK, other jurisdictions including Thailand say: "Look, if you are outside of our jurisdiction, we really don't have anything to do with you unless what you are doing has some sort of nexus of commerce within our jurisdiction." And this is part and parcel of that. If you are in Thailand, you are subject to Thai tax rules, Thai tax Law. I don't know that you are going to be able to overcome political traction against that because pretty much everybody that would be making the decision on this would be a Thai national. I can tell you myself I don't love the idea of a foreign national coming to Thailand and paying less taxes than me so I don't really see folks that are in a position to legislate on this feeling any differently.

Now how this all plays out remains to be seen. We will definitely keep you updated on this channel as the situation evolves.