Retirement extension

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mahjongguy
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Re: Retirement extension

Post by mahjongguy »

fountainhall wrote: Fri Jul 05, 2019 2:46 pm
gera wrote: Fri Jul 05, 2019 12:55 pm
I can only find this on a ThaiVsa forum -
I talked with numerous tax advisors and accountants and the answer was that a Thai Elite member cannot become a tax resident and is not able to obtain a tax id because he or she cannot be employed in the country.
https://forum.thaivisa.com/topic/107692 ... ax-issues/
That's all the proof I need to never pay for tax advice. It's such a dumb statement.

You don't need a certain visa. You don't need to be employed. You don't even need to be a tax resident. If you have evidence of withholding then they must provide you with a Thai tax ID.
fountainhall

Re: Retirement extension

Post by fountainhall »

Thank you gera. I was looking at what claims to be the official Thailand Elite site -

https://www.thailandelite.com/?locate=en

The much more detailed and informative one you quote has been prepared by Henley & Partners. I assume they are an official agent for Thailand Elite.
Dodger
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Re: Retirement extension

Post by Dodger »

Fountainhall and gera,

The United States and Thailand have a Tax Treaty (referred to technically as "Tax Convention") which was signed by the President of the United States in 1998. One section of the Treaty states the following:

Article 20: Pensions, Social Security Payments, Annuities, Alimony and Child Support
Article 20 covers four types of payments which share the trait that they are typically paid or received by individuals as “personal” items. Pensions, social security payments, annuities, alimony and child support payments paid to the resident of a contracting state shall be taxable only in the state where they arise.

Note that in the treaty they refer to "unearned income" as "personal items". The bottom line is that foreign residents of Thailand (expats) do not pay tax in Thailand on Pensions, Social Security Payments, Annuities, Alimony and Child Support as noted clearly in the Treaty.

I don't know which other countries have similar treaties with Thailand.

Below is a link to Tax Convention between the U.S. and Thailand as prepared by the U.S. IRS:

https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-trty/thailand.pdf

gera:

Much of the information I saw on Thai Visa related to this topic was either incorrect, ambiguous and/or misleading. Personally, I would disregard this. The Elite Program (run by TAT) has no authority whatsoever over Thailand tax law.

Fountainhall:

As a side note: Unless Thailand ordered a formal audit of your financial accounts, which would be hard to imagine, I just can't see any way that they could know which year your offshore income was derived.
gera

Re: Retirement extension

Post by gera »

Dodger wrote: Sat Jul 06, 2019 8:22 am Fountainhall and gera,

The United States and Thailand have a Tax Treaty (referred to technically as "Tax Convention") which was signed by the President of the United States in 1998. One section of the Treaty states the following:

Article 20: Pensions, Social Security Payments, Annuities, Alimony and Child Support
Article 20 covers four types of payments which share the trait that they are typically paid or received by individuals as “personal” items. Pensions, social security payments, annuities, alimony and child support payments paid to the resident of a contracting state shall be taxable only in the state where they arise.

Note that in the treaty they refer to "unearned income" as "personal items". The bottom line is that foreign residents of Thailand (expats) do not pay tax in Thailand on Pensions, Social Security Payments, Annuities, Alimony and Child Support as noted clearly in the Treaty.

I don't know which other countries have similar treaties with Thailand.

Below is a link to Tax Convention between the U.S. and Thailand as prepared by the U.S. IRS:

https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-trty/thailand.pdf

gera:

Much of the information I saw on Thai Visa related to this topic was either incorrect, ambiguous and/or misleading. Personally, I would disregard this. The Elite Program (run by TAT) has no authority whatsoever over Thailand tax law.

Fountainhall:

As a side note: Unless Thailand ordered a formal audit of your financial accounts, which would be hard to imagine, I just can't see any way that they could know which year your offshore income was derived.
As I mentioned in my initial post, at this stage it is really all theoretical, since in practice currently expats are not taxed for foreign derived income in Thailand. Also, all points you made are valid. Except for probably you never dealt with non US tax authorities. I had such an experience twice:
once in Canada and then in Singapore. Try to argue with them or refer to tax treaties! It is useless. Experienced tax attorney will be necessary.
Theoretically speaking despite the treaty , if part of your income is not taxable in US (e.g. Social Security), they may insist on taxing it in Thailand
if you deposit it directly in Thai account. Hope all will remain in theory and never materialize!
Dodger
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Re: Retirement extension

Post by Dodger »

gera wrote: Sat Jul 06, 2019 12:27 pmif part of your income is not taxable in US (e.g. Social Security), they may insist on taxing it in Thailand
if you deposit it directly in Thai account. Hope all will remain in theory and never materialize!
I understand the points you're making and don't mean to belabor this, but, for clarification: It doesn't matter if an American has to pay tax on their Social Security earnings or not (some do & some don't), it is still considered "Taxable Income". Taxable income on "personal items" such as social security are exempt from being taxed in Thailand.

The only way Thailand could impose tax on this would be to break the Treaty.
Up2u

Re: Retirement extension

Post by Up2u »

Last Monday night, July 8th, I did an ACH transfer from Schwab to BB NYC. 70k THB posted to my BB account on Wednesday morning. How long this method will work is a guess but it is currently fast and cheap. BB did provide me tracking details for that botched TW transfer but will forget doing that as I can now show an unbroken history of "foreign source" transfers to Thailand.
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Trongpai
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Re: Retirement extension

Post by Trongpai »

Up2u wrote: Fri Jul 12, 2019 6:57 am Last Monday night, July 8th, I did an ACH transfer from Schwab to BB NYC. 70k THB posted to my BB account on Wednesday morning. How long this method will work is a guess
I received a registered letter from Bangkok Bank in March informing me that ACH transfers would stop on April 1 2019 because of US banking regulations but will be allowed to continue until Oct 1 2019. The letter was confusing and long but then went on to say they are working on a solution to this problem. They will keep me advised.

I switched over to Transferwise and have not tried an ACH transfer since April.
Up2u

Re: Retirement extension

Post by Up2u »

Trongpai wrote: Fri Jul 12, 2019 10:39 am I received a registered letter from Bangkok Bank in March informing me that ACH transfers would stop on April 1 2019 because of US banking regulations but will be allowed to continue until Oct 1 2019. The letter was confusing and long but then went on to say they are working on a solution to this problem. They will keep me advised.
Thanks for that. Nine months of successful transfers with TW and then had the A-bomb dropped on me in July.
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2lz2p
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Re: Retirement extension

Post by 2lz2p »

After having my early July transfer by TW sent through Kasikorn Bank, thus showing up in my Bangkok Bank account as a domestic transfer, I contacted TW to see if there was a way to ensure my transfers went to Bangkok Bank direct. Well, they did advise me that they "informed" their folks to send my next transfer direct - it will arrive today and checking the "receipt" it was sent direct to Bangkok Bank - so, I will at least be able to show a >65k baht transfer for this month.

BUT, they also advised they could not guarantee that future transfers would not go through a partner bank different from Bangkok Bank. As I understand it, if sent through a partner bank, one can obtain a "reference number" from Bangkok Bank, which can be used to ask the partner bank (in my case for earlier transfer, Kasikorn Bank) to provide a Credit Advice showing the international source for the domestic transfer -- if anyone goes this route, please post your experience and, hopefully, success in obtaining evidence to support it as an International transfer.

Also, this morning I had a "general" email from my US Bank (Chase) advising they have now instituted an online International Wire transfer feature called Chase Global Transfer, a fee of U$5 with funds sent in baht -- I logged onto my Chase account and sure enough, that option was available - so I did a comparison between Chase Global and TW -- result is because of lower exchange rate used by Chase, the TW transfer would result in about 1,500 baht more in my account notwithstanding the US$27 TW fees. But, it does offer a fall back method to ensure the transfer is recorded as Int'l, thus meeting Immigration requirements.

However, based on Up2u's post, I may switch back to using a domestic ACH transfer through Bangkok Bank's NY Branch until it actually ceases to work - I've been monitoring a Thaivisa.com thread on the subject and so far, there have been a few reports from others that successfully sent transfers through Bangkok Bank's NY branch this month.
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