Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests we're talking about "is there IRS agent infiltration into Thailand in an initiative to harmonize Thailand's tax policy with the OECD?" There's a lot going on in this video and let me preface by saying I didn't want to make this video; I don't want to make this video at all. I consider it at this point a civic duty to Thailand to make this video. I would also like to preface this video by saying why is Thailand the one place on the face of the Earth where every Farang comes over here, every foreigner comes here and just disregards the law. It is the only place I have ever seen on the planet, where people come and just say, and when you tell them "hey you know it's illegal for you to own land in Thailand" - "oh well I'll just work around it!" Well it's illegal for you to do this. It’s illegal for you to be a lawyer in Thailand; it's illegal for you to dispense legal advice; it's illegal for you to dispense tax advice in Thailand if you are not Thai. "Oh well, I'll just do it." By the way, to those who are sitting there saying oh he's just talking his book because he just wants to fearmonger things up because he gets to make money because he's a naturalized Thai. There's an element of that here, but it's deeper than this. It goes to professional ethics; it goes to the issue again of civic duty. In America, if foreigners just came off the plane and started dispensing advice regarding American law, what would we do about that? Oh that's right, we have a criminal charge for that. It's called the unlicensed practice of law. I don't get this, where foreigners, it's arrogance, I think it's Neo-Colonialist kind of thinking arrogance. They just think that "Oh well the Thais don't know what they're doing! They've only had a civilization that's lasted for thousands of years and remained uncolonized by any outsiders and held their own during the first and second world wars and then held their own through the Cold War. What would they possibly know?" It's really tiring and I'm sick of the attitude and I'm sick of these foreigners coming in here and acting like they own the place. You don't! This is what this is about. This isn't about me making any more money, this is about Thailand's sovereignty. Thailand makes decisions on what kind of professionals exist within her borders. Thailand makes decisions about who can issue advice regarding Thai Law and Thai Tax Law. I am tired of this nonsense but let me dig into this so we can get it over with.

That said, I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from ASEAN NOW, that's aseannow.com. Now I would further like to preface the quoting of this article with discussion on why I created this channel to begin with. Well quite honestly, it was because of Thai Visa which was ASEAN NOW's predecessor which I think they changed their name because at a certain point, Thai Visa because I heard it called Thai weasel, Thai all kinds of things back in the day because it was horrible. It was a website replete with nonsense, misinformation, outdated information. Now some of it Thai Visa Forum came by it honestly, you'd have old postings and people would read that and detrimentally rely on it and not realize things had changed. Then you would have situations where commenters would get on there and talk all kinds of nonsense as if they knew something and then unfortunately people would detrimentally rely on that information, get themselves into problems. That was exactly why I formed this channel was to just talk the straight dope and give people the real information as best I could. If you haven't noticed, I have been on this channel correcting myself many, many times. I've never claimed to be perfect and I'm not claiming it now, but I at least have the ability to do what I'm doing and the credentials and the qualifications to actually talk what I'm talking about and I actually know what I'm talking about. Unlike all these other idiots, and that's the right word. If you are out there dispensing tax advice in clear and flagrant violation of Thai Law, that's the only description I can have for you. You are either an idiot or nefarious. There are really only two options, okay? So what are we talking about? 

Quoting directly again, from ASEAN  NOW, aseannow.com. Thailand's expats urged to register with TRD, (that's the Thai Revenue Department) for Tax, Says Expert. What the headline should say is 'Says Criminal' because this person is a foreign national operating criminally in Thai borders. That's a fact and I will get into why it's a fact here in a moment. Quoting further: "Tax expert Thomas Carden...."  - where does the title Tax Expert come from? And by the way, Tax “Expert” is not some title that magically means you get to talk about all the tax jurisdictions all across the world, okay? That's a fact too. I don't know who, I think I know this Thomas Carden. I think I may have met this person before, whatever, I'm going to dig further into it. "...has advised expatriates residing in Thailand for 180 days or more in 2024 to obtain a Tax Identification Number from the Thai Revenue Department." Apropos of what? That's terrible advice. This one size fits all nonsense advice is exactly what it is, it's nonsense. This person is herding people into a detrimental position under the law as it sits right now. And by the way, I do have the right to talk about the law as it is right now. I am Thai and I do have qualifications as an actual tax professional, not this pseudo nonsense which we will get into in a moment. Quoting further: "Addressing members of the Pattaya City Expat Club." By the way Pattaya City Expat Club, why don't you send me an email? An actual person who can actually talk about this stuff and isn't some nonsense, quite honestly, I don't even know what the right word is for this. Interloper, charlatan. Not incorrect terms if they don't have the legal qualification to be dispensing the advice they claim to be able to dispense. Quoting further: "Carden emphasized the need for expatriates to register and submit tax forms by the first quarter of 2025, even if they believe they owe no tax." Not true. Why would you do that? Or why would you advise that in a one-size-fits-all manner? Yeah, there are going to be certain people that may need to go get a tax ID; there are other people who don't. I'm really tired of that. A perfect example of this, in any event, let me just dig into it further. 

That said, I want to go clearly into, put this up on screen: Notification of the Ministry of Labour RE: Prescription of the Prohibited Occupations for Foreigners which I have put up in the past. Let's go here under 27. Legal services or services in legal proceedings, except for the following works:

(A) Performing duties of arbitration;

(B) Providing assistance or representation in the arbitral proceedings in the event that the law applicable to the dispute being considered by the arbitrator is not Thai Law." So in the limited situations involving arbitration which involves foreign law, yes foreign legal advisors can be brought in for a limited purpose of arbitration. I have discussed that in other videos, but here's what is not allowed. First of all, is Mr. Carden talking to the Pattaya City Expats Club dispensing tax advice? Is that operating in arbitration proceedings? No, it isn't. Quoting further: Providing services in "legal counseling" - Talking about Thai law and applying it and telling people this is what you should do, that is legal counseling, unequivocally that's what that is. Meanwhile, and I could go into all -I've done a video in the past where we go into all the little nitpicks of what is legal service and for those who sit around and say "well you know, I only move paperwork around. I'm not really working in the legal system." Yes. Secretarial is covered under the restricted occupations too.

Then meanwhile, let's go over here to List 2, Prohibited Occupations for foreigners. Quote: No. 1. Occupations: Controlling, auditing, performing or providing accounting services, except for the following works:

(A) Occasional internal audit work. So, are we talking about the internal auditing of a major corporation? No, we're talking about dispensing tax advice in a one-size-fits-all manner to an open forum of people. That's what we're talking about; that's what happened here. Quoting further:

(B) Work under International agreements or obligations to which Thailand is bound - so again where is that?

Then meanwhile let's go over here under Definitions: Providing accounting services for individuals, (again for individuals), juristic persons, groups of persons, foundations, associations, enterprises, private agencies, state enterprises or government agencies as the following: and then go down under 6. Other services related to accounting in various branches, bookkeeping, auditing, administrative accounting, setting an accounting system, tax accounting, and education and accounting technology, as well as consultancy." That is what is occurring here. Mr. Carten, what are you doing? You're completely in violation of the protected occupations. I don't understand why you are doing it.

Then meanwhile let's dig in a little bit more over here regarding the title of this article. As I said, IRS Agents are infiltrating Thailand in order to try and “harmonize” us with the "Global Minimum Tax" nonsense that the OECD seems to be pushing. Again, I'm quoting again from ASEAN NOW, aseannow.com. "He warned that failing to register could lead to audits and potential penalties in the future." Again, you are counseling people? You’re dispensing tax consultancy? Are you a Thai sir? Quoting further: "If you delay, the financial penalty screws can become tighter and tighter." So now he's fear-mongering these people, freaking them all out? I've said multiple times, as the law currently stands, 80% of foreigners here in Thailand probably aren't going to have any kind of problems, especially the retirees, and that doesn't mean they need to go running down and getting a tax ID number. That could be to their detriment. Quoting further: "There has been some confusion of local Revenue Offices due to a lack of information from the TRD head office in Bangkok making it challenging for expatriates to understand their obligations." This is another reason for talking to actually qualified people, okay? And again, I'm an American Tax Attorney, that's what I am, but I work in this office daily with real Thai Tax professionals and what they will tell you is nothing in the law has changed. So why would you be advising people to run out and possibly put themselves under tax liability when you're not even looking directly at each person's specific case. Then meanwhile, providing legal counseling and providing Tax consultancy is explicitly illegal for foreigners in Thailand especially as it pertains to Thai Law. And we'll get into here in a moment some of this person's "qualifications" but again what is abundantly clear is this person is talking about Thai Law. Thai Law is excluded. That is subject matter outside of the legal ability of foreigners to dispense advice on. If I seem mad, it's because I have been here 17 years, following the rules and I have to watch idiots come in like a clown car and pretend to be real professionals. And before anybody says I'm casting aspersions about real professionals, a real professional doesn't come to a jurisdiction and operate illegally. Quoting further: "Carden advised using professional Tax Services.." yeah, good idea, somebody that actually operates within the law of the local jurisdiction, is that what you're talking about professional. Quoting further: "..to navigate the systems," so basically not him and again, why would he be navigating the Thai Tax System anyway? Is he Thai? Quoting further, and this is kind of where I get into okay what is this person? I went over to their LinkedIn page, and it says they have a JSM, which is some kind of Pseudo Law Degree, I don't even know what this is called. It's not an LLM, it’s not a JD, it's just "Oh, I read some law books and they gave me a piece of paper" from the best of my knowledge. Meanwhile the person also maintains that they are an enrolled agent, an enrolled agent of the IRS, of the Internal Revenue Service. Now you go on the IRS's website, and they will go on and on about these people are professional clad da, da,da, it's because IRS says they are professionals, IRS says they are professionals for purposes of dealing with IRS. I am an attorney, duly qualified, licensed, I had to take the bar exam, minimum competency for legal concepts in terms of tax law or whatever, okay? Whatever internal IRS hoop jumping exercise these folks go through to become so-called “enrolled agents” whatever, they're not professionals in the sense of the term that the lay people believe that to be. They're not CPAs and they're not Attorneys so what are we talking about there? Meanwhile, they are definitely not covered under anything having to do with Thailand's treaties with the United States, and I also ask the question, this person's literally an enrolled agent; by definition, by their own labeling they are an agent of the IRS. So, the next question I have is 1) is it IRS policy to send your agents to foreign countries - specifically Treaty allies of the United States - to illegally dispense tax advice in that jurisdiction? Is that IRS policy? Is that the American Government's policy toward their allies? Send your agents to these countries and just tell them, "disregard local laws regarding professional certification in these locations; disregard local laws regarding occupations restricted to local nationals; just disregard the local laws of our allies." Is that the policy of the American Government and the IRS? Really? Then meanwhile, it begs the question why would this person be out there telling everybody to go running into a tax ID. Is it because OECD is out there on the horizon trying to "harmonize" us into all of this Global Minimum Tax? Could it be that? Could it be the fact that under the terms of the US-Thai Treaty of Amity, American corporations certified under the treaty, have a special posture vis a vis the US Tax Authorities and it's a posture that creates benefits for those operating here in Thailand, but isn't in line with the OECD's notion of a “Global Minimum Tax System” or a “harmonized” tax system whereby a bunch of globalist bureaucrats come in here and tell us all what to do. Is this person sort of the vanguard of that, of a bunch of globalist bureaucrats coming in and telling Thailand how to do its tax policy? Is that what is happening here? Because it seems like it. It seems a lot like it.

Yeah, I don't have any more notes on this and I don't have anything else to quote on it. If you can't tell, I'm insanely upset about this - insane is probably the wrong word - I'm acutely sane but I can't, I don't get this attitude. I don't get this attitude of foreigners who just come in here and flout the law here, and then sit around and want to then charge fees and charge the public as if they are upright and they are professionals. No, you may be a professional back in the American context, back in that jurisdiction but here the restricted occupations are clear, and beyond even that, literally this person was doing this in an open forum dispensing Thai advice. Where is that qualification to do that? Thais can't even dispense tax advice without proper qualifications to do so. And the main qualification to do it in Thailand regarding Thai subject matter Law is being Thai, and if you're not that, then what are you?