And the tax officials are watching
Editorial credit: aquatarkus/Shutterstock.com
Thailand also employs these useful people! Yes, really useful people, and they work to get the state rack filled because that's what a country lives on. No state can run smoothly without tax dollars. That is also why the faithful servants from your homeland even know where to find you in Thailand.
Thai tax laws also give special powers to the officials of the Treasury. If they think there is tax evasion or an incorrect or incomplete declaration, they can investigate .. and seize items .. and file a claim or issue a summons to the taxpayer at all places.
Apart from that, even if there is no immediate reason to ask the taxpayer questions, the service can collect information and evidence related to money flows from domestic and foreign sources. In short, Big Bro works, even if you don't know or don't expect it.
An overview of this now follows so that you know what the government can do to gather information; you, the taxpayer, then know what the service already has if you fill in your tax letter truthfully.
The first sources
Income tax is an assessment tax and the return is the first source of information. You provide that source yourself. This return is assessed and checked by the service and serves as the basis for the income tax assessment.
The service will check this as well as possible and, if necessary, compare it with data from other taxpayers. Such as the withholding taxes that someone else supplies; in our world this includes payroll tax (NL) and withholding tax (BE).
Other sources. Exchanging information
They are legion! To begin with it electronic payment traffic in this digital world with e-payment and e-money. Since 2019, banks and e-services have provided annual data on customers and their transactions in number and size. What must be delivered?
That is all transactions, deposits and withdrawals if there are more than 3.000 per year. Or transactions etc if there are more than 400 per year and total more than 2 million THB per year. Of course, the banks also deliver to your name, ID number and account numbers.
Another method is to use the treaties to avoid double taxation. Thailand has treaties with 61 countries and those treaties have an article about exchanging intelligence'in particular to prevent fraud, as well as to implement legal provisions against evasion of the law' as the text reads in Article 26 of the TH-NL and TH-BE treaty.
For Thai residents of the USA there is the FATCA, the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act and that arrangement provides for the transmission of certain movements and balances. I leave that undiscussed here.
It is especially important for people from the EU Common Reporting Standard, the CRS. Thailand joined in 2017 and the intention is to adapt the Thai tax law and automatically transfer and receive the data by September 2023! What does that mean?
It is the automatic transmission of information under a multilateral agreement developed by the OECD, a collaboration of 38 countries, to prevent tax evasion. Banks and other institutions working in money transactions collect and report data from their customers on request and automatically.
That works mutually; Thailand will also pass on data to your home country, on request but also automatically.
Is this blissful?
No of course not. These systems are not a conclusive solution against fraud and tax evasion. But once properly introduced, they can be a tool, also for Thailand, provided that they are accompanied by good legislation, effective compliance, international cooperation and information.
So don't wait for the authorities to catch you. Anticipate this when you are going to complete your tax return and make sure that the return is correct. The penalty for tax fraud is fine, increases and/or prosecution.
Freely translated and edited by Erik Kuijpers. Source: lexology.com. On that site you can subscribe to emails by country, region or jurisdiction.
Good info, Eric.
A warned person counts for two.
Hello Eric,
Maybe tell you more. For example, for expats over the age of 50 with little or no income or pensioners with only small pensions. I don't think they need to worry that much.
Bob, tax rates are a political matter. The national budget and distribution of income are part of this.
This is about the way in which the government controls taxpayers. Information from abroad is becoming increasingly important. If you want to know the Thai rates, read the many contributions of Lammert de Haan in this blog.
No, of course not. No or hardly any income means little or no taxation. From the same cloth a suit, this applies to those with a small pension. But for those with little or no pension, there is a minimal chance that they live in Thailand. Unless with 400 or 800K ThB on a Thai bank. In the first case, married to a Thai woman with her own income. My UK neighbour, eg No wonder he is so grumpy.
Bank of Thailand opposes cash and the US dollar, in a plan they want to halve cash by 2026. This gives them even more control over the people…
Nicely invented by the bank and perhaps rightly so, but the reality is different.
Today there was another drawing of the lottery and there is also the illegal version. The latter consists only of the grace of “forces” and that can only last with cash. In my opinion, driving out the illegal lottery will not happen before 2026.
In addition, there is also a gigantic group of the population who work for themselves and that is also hand cash. The bank can want it, but the people determine whether it will benefit them and if not, it just won't happen.
I don't quite understand the USD story, but I do know that TH managed to increase the trade surplus by 20% so far in 2022. Doesn't that mean that a country is getting richer?
The strange thing is that according to a program by Zembla, the state treasury misses out on companies 7 billion in taxes every year.
Or is there more money being earned with such a construction here and are people just leaving it that way?
A Blackrock owns 1700 homes in Rotterdam and Amsterdam and does not have to pay any tax on them.
I do get a pre-assessment up to 2 times, both were 59 euros to pay the same. The following year I got it back with a multiple. Yes they are having a good time.
That fictitious yield thing, if I have understood it correctly, everyone will get that back. Not because it is actually normal, but otherwise many lawsuits will follow.
However, the tax authorities can still claim from you up to 5 years ago. That's normal then.
There is a special unit at the tax authorities, the think tank, where employees walk around crying and resigning. So a lot of strange things are invented there.
and what do they do with our money? Side street, they buy F35s with a sloppy 700 hardware and software defects. If my car has a defect with the MOT, it will be rejected.
The Netherlands, like many other countries, is a capitalist dictatorship.
People are subservient and are nothing more than a piece of chicken. and even though they are bald, just by plucking.
Peter, the article is not about spending tax dollars; that's up to the politicians we voted for on the plush. This also applies to the problem of the levy in box 3.
As for the five-year term, it also applies to you if you want your assessments reviewed.
That's true. The article is about collecting as much money as possible from tax authorities wherever you are. After all, only 38 participate, but Thailand is a sub then, an aspiring member?
If they have been able to charge me wrongly for 2 euros up to 59 times, that already tells me something. It's just something to do with the IRS. Wrong algorithms?
Oh yes, as Wiebes said: “tax authorities, wonderful, wonderful”
This article is about how the government gets its information. so that they can levy the correct amounts. For those who simply pay their taxes, there is no reason to worry. Those who do not pay taxes, but should, are in fact defrauding society. By making everyone pay what they are obliged to do, taxes can remain lower. What one pays too little must be paid for by the other, because the schools and roads have to be built. Perhaps not a popular point of view, but we are the government ourselves. Tax evasion is a crime and in fact theft from your fellow man who does pay.
There was once a tax morale among Dutch citizens who filled in their tax returns in good faith. Honor and conscience are eroding today.
Moderator: Your comment is only about the Netherlands, this is Thailandblog.