Transcript of the above video: 

It is probably good to preface this video by also saying yes, I am Thai, I am naturalized Thai and I know I fit into a kind of novel position. If there was a Venn diagram to sort of describe me, it would be multiple different circles with an overlap the width of a fingernail in which I stand, but here I am. I just am what I am. Yes, I have an American background; I am an American Attorney; I am an American Tax Attorney, and yes, I provide advice especially as it pertains to American Tax Law and possible interaction with certain Thai Tax Law especially in a corporate capacity, as I have discussed many times on this channel. To be clear, and I have never claimed to be otherwise, I am not a Thai Attorney, nor am I a Thai Tax professional. I have discussed tax matters on this channel for informational purposes only, but for advisory purposes on Tax matters, I refer folks - if they contact us or they contact me - to folks within our office who are Thai Tax professionals, not foreigners pretending to be Thai tax professionals. Let me be clear, I'm quoting from an article that brought all this back to the foreground for me again. 

The article is from the Pattaya Mail, pattayamail.com, the article is titled: Webinar discounts rumors of tax exemptions for expats. First things first. There has been all of this talk about "oh they are going to pass some memorandum as it pertains to Thai Tax." Well it hasn't come about yet, so until it does, there is no point sitting around ruminating on it until it happens. If it happens, then analyze what the memorandum or what the possible rule change, what the possible regulatory change is afterwards. But all of this is sort of as we would say, counting your chickens before they hatch. It's kind of an effort in futility and I don't really see the point of it. 

Now that said, the purpose of this video is to advise yet again, on being very wary of any foreign national of any kind - I am not going to name any specifics here in this video, and I am going to redact where necessary from the article - but any foreign national claiming to be able to provide any kind of advice regarding Thai Law generally or specific to Thai Tax matters, and that is advising on the Law by the way. That is what we are talking about when you are talking about tax law; you're talking about Law. Yes, it has an accounting component, but it also has a legal component, a legal advisory component, as I have discussed many, many times on this channel. 

That said quoting directly, I'm going to go ahead and quote and redact, “A Tax webinar - and then I am going to redact everything else because I don't want to name names” - I don't want to get into, because there has been more than just one of these folks out here who are claiming the ability to advise regarding Thai legal matters and Thai Tax matters which by the way there is intersection between the two, and as I will get into here in a moment, it is not appropriate. And the point of this video is less to run down somebody as I have been accused of many times, it is not my purpose. My purpose is to warn people because you can get into a situation - as I have already seen in a number of cases - where people have been given in my opinion, bad advice and I have mostly seen this percolate up from the Thais in our office telling me in the aftermath of doing their own basically discussions, consultations and assistance on Tax matters and telling me this guy shouldn't have been in the tax system at all to begin with. He was given bad advice by somebody who basically wanted to stir up some "work" by getting them to go ahead and file a tax return that they may not have needed to file, okay. This is a real problem because it puts the public at risk and it can put individuals into a situation where they detrimentally rely on someone who either does not have their interest at heart or who doesn't even know what they are talking about, putting them into a negative position. That said, quoting again: "A Tax webinar, (name redacted) has stressed that rumors about tax exemption for foreign income transfers have not been published in the Royal Gazette. Thus they have not come into force." Well that is at the end of the day a legal analysis, however you want to look at it. You are saying but for, this hasn't come into effect, then there is legal analysis there, and why that is a problem. Earlier this year it had been suggested by sources in the Finance Ministry that such cash transfers might be exempt from personal income tax if sent in the calendar year of earning or the next calendar year." Well there has been a lot of things suggested by a lot of different parties that don't come to pass. Again, it's the problem of all these foreigners running around acting as if they have the authority or the qualification to talk about Tax matters in Thailand and then letting the rumour mill just sort of get into a feedback loop that causes people to put themselves into bad positions regarding taxation.

Which brings me to an unofficial translation from the Department of Employment - I believe signed by the Ministry of Labour - from 2020, put this on screen, notification, and this is unofficial translation into English from the DOE; and I have posted this before in other videos; there are links in other videos. That said, quoting directly: "Notification of the Ministry of Labour, Prescriptions of the Prohibited Occupations for Foreigners, and if you go over here under definition of Prohibited Occupations for Foreigners, List 1. Occupations that are strictly prohibited for foreigners: under list 1, 

27. Legal Services or Services in Legal Proceedings, except for the following works: 

-       Performing duties of arbitration;

-       Providing assistance or representation and arbitral proceedings in the event that the law applicable to                  the dispute being considered by the arbitrator is not Thai Law. 

So unless you are talking about an arbitration proceeding that doesn't pertain to Thai Law, that is the only exception to foreigners operating in the legal space here in Thailand. They are prohibited from doing so, and going over here to Definition: Providing services in legal counseling. So advising on the state of Thai law regarding tax, I don't know how much more clearly that could be within the bailiwick of legal counseling. 

That being said, going further, over here to List 2. Prohibited Occupations for foreigners with a condition that foreigners are allowed to work under international agreements or obligations to which Thailand is bound the under the provisions of Law. Let's start with the exceptions, so you can understand the rule. If you go down here under Definition. So it says Occupations: Controlling, auditing, performing or providing accounting services, except for the following works: 

-       Occasional internal audit work; 

-       Work under International Agreements or obligations to which Thailand is bound for which the Professional             Association provides a certificate of qualifications. 

So unless there is some sort of International Certification that has occurred, it is not possible to provide that service. And then they go on at the bottom here, Except for the following works:

-       Occasional internal audit;

-       Work under international agreements or obligation to which Thailand is bound for which the Accounting      Professional Council provides a certificate of qualifications. 

So unless somebody can produce that and it pertains to some sort of occasional audit work, basically a multinational corporation type of a thing, although I am not going to draw that as a hard conclusion because again really not my place to do so, but based on the plain language of this in English that is the exception; the exception is for something occurring sort of in an international capacity. Not matters pertaining to Thai internal Tax Law as it says under set Subsection 6, under the definitions: 

6. Other Services related to accounting in various branches, such as bookkeeping, auditing, administrative accounting, setting an accounting system, tax accounting pertaining to Thai Tax Law, Tax accounting, and education and accounting technology as well as consultancy, development and training.”

So what's a Webinar? Is that training? Is that education? Is that development? Is that consultancy? Does it pertain to Thai Accounting and Thai Tax Law? I will allow the viewer to draw their own conclusions. That said, why am I making such a big deal out of this? I know, the comments are going to go, "oh you are just talking your own book; it is all for that." No it isn't. It is because people detrimentally rely on unqualified people and then put themselves into bad situations. I remember when I was taking Professional Ethics which is going back, it was like my third semester of law school, so like my second year. I would have been a 2L, my first semester, my second year of law school, taking Professional Ethics and they talked about why licensure was important. Because if you are not talking to somebody qualified and this was - I am going to use this as an analogy - but if you are talking to somebody and you are taking legal advice and again, I have seen in a bunch of comments, people say, "oh, you are just appealing to expertise." Sometimes it is important to appeal to expertise, okay. Sometimes, especially when it comes to really sort of discreet points of law, you need to talk to somebody who actually knows what they are talking about. And let me be clear, I am not saying that is necessarily me as it pertains to Tax. I don't get up here and pontificate on the fine little points of Thai Tax Law, and I certainly don't get on this channel and do broad sweeping statements of analysis and draw conclusion that the public then detrimentally relies upon in all of their dealings, because that can cause problems for those people.

A tax analysis you have to look at the underlying facts in a given case. It cannot be broadly done okay. Notwithstanding what journalists or what any of these so-called influencers or whatever say, that's just the fact of it. It has to be done on a case-by-case basis lest you find yourself in a position where you’re detrimentally relying on bad advice, or worse, you could be deemed to effectively being engaged in some kind of criminal conspiracy and what are we talking about. Going back to what I was discussing of when I was in Ethics Class in Law School, I remember this old judge- I have forgotten his name off the top of my head, maybe it will come to me - but this old Judge who was our Ethics professor, he basically, Bullock, Judge Bullock, that was his name, he basically talked about at one point, he said the reason licensure is so important is one, you have got to make sure people out there are qualified to provide advice on the subject matter they are giving advice on. The other thing is, if you're not talking to somebody qualified - at least in an American context - I'm not saying draw this as an apples-to-apples analogy over to Thailand but there are shades of this analysis that I think are pertinent at least in a general sense. If you are sitting there with somebody who is not qualified to give out legal advice and you are trying to for example “get around” if you will - I use that in a sort of a euphemistic sense - you are trying to get around some aspect of the Law, you are trying to figure out how to be in compliance with the law notwithstanding the ostensible reading of the law would seem to suggest you can't do something and you are trying to use sort of interpretive or creative usage of other laws to allow you to get to the end result you want notwithstanding other laws that may look like they operate to the contrary, if you are not dealing with qualified individuals, that could be inferred to be engaging in some kind of conspiracy to violate the law. That's the point here. And again, if you are not dealing with somebody who is qualified in their given jurisdiction, to provide the advice on the subject matter that they are advising on, you could put yourself into a position where you could end up being in more trouble than you were if you had never talked to that person to begin with. Again this isn't strictly me talking about this from a business standpoint or for my own personal benefit. I've been accused of that a lot, and it really gets pretty galling after a while. I'm saying this because I've seen it already. People have detrimentally relied on really bad advice given primarily by a bunch of foreigners who don't have qualification to advise regarding the matters they are advising on, and let me be clear, in this article I can't say for certain whether or not this webinar was conducted by a foreign national or a Thai national; it would seem to have been conducted, it looks, I don't know, I'm just saying. That said, draw your own conclusions; do your own research. If it turns out that this whole thing was done by a Thai, fine. I've read stuff by Thai legal professionals who have talked about tax matters; I have read it on this channel, where they are talking about something so be it, but if you are relying on a foreigner who they themselves seem to be flouting Thai law regarding matters pertaining to Thai tax, is that really someone you want to take advice from? And moreover, do you really want to put yourself in the possible position of later being deemed to having engaged in some kind of nefarious act by taking this "so-called" advice to begin with; it doesn't seem like a good idea. And I am hoping the public uses this as an opportunity to see; and this is the other thing, there are plenty of Thai professionals out there who speak perfectly fluent English; there is not a shortage of them, okay. I am not saying you have got to contact us, contact whoever you want. Contact a relevant professional, ascertain their qualifications and then go from there. One of the big ones would be, as we have already discussed with regard to the restricted occupations, you have to be Thai; that's the base. That is the baseline qualification to be advising on Thai Tax Law.