Thailand 0% tax

[TheCryptoAnt]

Oh, a psychic. How will cryptocurrencies develop in 2023?

BTC LH to prior range, then EQ the rest of the year between yearly low and yearly high.
So now long, then short, then long, then its Christmas again.

 

[JackAlabama]

Oh, a psychic. How will cryptocurrencies develop in 2023?

They will go up.
If they do not go up, then they will go down. Eventually also they go sideways.

 

[MagicMatt]

An alternative is to marry a local and get a yearly renewable extension of stay in TH. Could be way more affordable than an Elite Visa if you select the right woman.

And far more expensive if you marry the wrong girl

 

[wellington]

How do you cope with the 9 months of bad weather between February to October with monsoons and temperatures around 40 °C (104 °F) in Thailand/SEA?

Not to mention the burning time.

Rain comes and goes most of the time, only a period in a month where it just pisses down non-stop (best period to get to the alps for the beginning of ski season and cookies with coco - late oct)

Thai is also cheap.

I will save $50K annually because of the cost of living here.

I don't get this one, I mean if you live 'thai style' its cheap, but western style its more costly than london, hk etc for the usual comfort foods, or beach clubs etc.

Cheap Charlie

Depends on the value of your time.

If you make 30k a year then it makes sense that 5.7k for a day dealing with people and paperwork, is better than 120k THB.

If you make 1m -5m a year then that day costs 2.7k to 13.7k$

Inverse to coping with the 9 months of bad weather in Europe.

Same same but different.

If you are a baller, you travel to nearly all continent's annually... so the weather doesn't really bother you.

Starting to get a reading this forum has been overtaken by low income tax evaders opposed to sophisticated entrepreneurs following legal tax planning by some of the commentary of late lol.

And far more expensive if you marry the wrong girl

I stopped socialising outside of my circle of trusted friends years ago, because i got tired of hearing how this 'wife' stole his house or that 'wife' stole his car.

They got a little upset when i pointed out it must have been on finance and the banks won't release a financed asset to a third party not on the finance so basically it was hers in the first place because she took on the finance.

----

Now aside from that, forigners can obtain finance for landed property, and can obtain chanute status subject to investor visa, they can also obtain actual credit cards and home (yes) home loans, just need to have a long history of the bank - i know as i got all that in 2012 - Platinum card, and 19m THB (then) authorisation on property purchase.

----

You must be hanging around with the 'ballers' (cheap charlies).

 

[TheCryptoAnt]

If you are a baller, you travel to nearly all continent's annually... so the weather doesn't really bother you.

Starting to get a reading this forum has been overtaken by low income tax evaders opposed to sophisticated entrepreneurs following legal tax planning by some of the commentary of late lol.

yeah man but not everybody likes traveling every few months.
Ive been a nomad since covid and this is getting old already.

I never sleep in my own bed, chairs are usually trash, wifi sucks, water pressure is off, etc... Theres always something that goes wrong.

What you just said indicates you havent actively tried this life before.

 

[yngmind]

I met a guy here in Bangkok.

He has lived here for 8 months. He has a bank account here.

He doesn't have a residence permit, he does visa runs, and it works.

So moving to Thailand is pretty easy.

Banks don't care about you. The tax authority also doesn't care.

You can rent a lovely apartment downtown for $1000-1500 and live like a king with malls and all the services a big city can provide.

What can you rent in Dubai for that price, a studio apartment?

Yeah, and here you will pay monthly, in Dubai, 1-2 cheques.

If you have some activities, like martial arts or something like that, you will pay in Dubai 10x the price you can have in Bangkok.

It's also easy to travel here in the SEA region, takes like 2 hours to get to the any country, and the price is only $50.

 

[MagicMatt]

You can easily spend $4000 a month just on dining out in Bangkok. Still cheaper than Zurich though.

 

[yngmind]

You can easily spend $4000 a month just on dining out in Bangkok. Still cheaper than Zurich though.

You can easily do it almost anywhere

 

[JackAlabama]

You can easily spend $4000 a month just on dining out in Bangkok. Still cheaper than Zurich though.

Indeed. Bkk has no shortage of where money can be spent. But Banyan tree rooftop gets odd if you go every night . You get however a good experience for it while in other cities this amount is just meh.

I met a guy here in Bangkok.

He has lived here for 8 months. He has a bank account here.

Such stuff works great for the first year, with luck the second. But thereafter, immigration guards usually get sus about what your up to. Malaysia is more chill with this tho.

He doesn't have a residence permit, he does visa runs, and it works.

It works until it does not. I would not base a whole strategy on it.

So moving to Thailand is pretty easy.

Banks don't care about you. The tax authority also doesn't care.

You can rent a lovely apartment downtown for $1000-1500 and live like a king with malls and all the services a big city can provide.

What can you rent in Dubai for that price, a studio apartment?

Difficult these days to find a studio in Marina/Downtown for that price. Rents went up a lot.

Yeah, and here you will pay monthly, in Dubai, 1-2 cheques.

If you have some activities, like martial arts or something like that, you will pay in Dubai 10x the price you can have in Bangkok.

It's also easy to travel here in the SEA region, takes like 2 hours to get to the any country, and the price is only $50.

Dubai has a complete different profile so its kinda hard to compare...

 

[RealDude]

If you are a baller, you travel to nearly all continent's annually... so the weather doesn't really bother you.

Currently I am looking for countries where you can enter quarterly (90 day tourist visas), so to speak with the pleasant weather travel. I like it warm around 25 degrees. Any suggestions?

But the current world situation does not make it easy.

Starting to get a reading this forum has been overtaken by low income tax evaders opposed to sophisticated entrepreneurs following legal tax planning by some of the commentary of late lol.

Bingo.

 

[zzzzzz]

I met a guy here in Bangkok.

He has lived here for 8 months. He has a bank account here.

He doesn't have a residence permit, he does visa runs, and it works.

So moving to Thailand is pretty easy.

Banks don't care about you. The tax authority also doesn't care.

He is probably considered a tourist with non-resident bank account. Not a long-term setup and from tax perspective, I bet he is still tax resident at home (digital nomad mentality).

I still don't know is elite visa just a tourist visa + golf/massage/airport lounge/fast check or is there something more to it?

 

[backpacker]

He is probably considered a tourist with non-resident bank account. Not a long-term setup and from tax perspective, I bet he is still tax resident at home (digital nomad mentality).

Again, it goes by tax residency.
That said, this guy can do visa runs. If he is present in Thailand for more than 180 days per year he is an ordinary tax resident in that given year.
If it's relevant to him he can try to get a TIN and it is fine.

I still don't know is elite visa just a tourist visa + golf/massage/airport lounge/fast check or is there something more to it?

There is nothing more to it. It's a simple tourist visa!
Official categorie: PE (Privileged Entry visa).
The Thai Elite visa has absolutely nothing to do with residency.

 

[wellington]

yeah man but not everybody likes traveling every few months.
Ive been a nomad since covid and this is getting old already.

I never sleep in my own bed, chairs are usually trash, wifi sucks, water pressure is off, etc... Theres always something that goes wrong.

What you just said indicates you havent actively tried this life before.

I don't 'rent'.

So no never experienced those issues.

Indeed. Bkk has no shortage of where money can be spent. But Banyan tree rooftop gets odd if you go every night . You get however a good experience for it while in other cities this amount is just meh.


Such stuff works great for the first year, with luck the second. But thereafter, immigration guards usually get sus about what your up to. Malaysia is more chill with this tho.

It works until it does not. I would not base a whole strategy on it.

Difficult these days to find a studio in Marina/Downtown for that price. Rents went up a lot.

Dubai has a complete different profile so its kinda hard to compare...

Full of crooks lol.

 

[yngmind]

Again, it goes by tax residency.
That said, this guy can do visa runs. If he is present in Thailand for more than 180 days per year he is an ordinary tax resident in that given year.
If it's relevant to him he can try to get a TIN and it is fine.


There is nothing more to it. It's a simple tourist visa!
Official categorie: PE (Privileged Entry visa).
It has nothing to with residency.

It’s interesting why they open a bank account on a tourist visa.

Anyway, with 10k baht you can open a bank account as a tourist without an elite thai visa

 

[wellington]

It’s interesting why they open a bank account on a tourist visa.

Anyway, with 10k baht you can open a bank account as a tourist without an elite thai visa

Back in the day, you used to do that with a required injection of 50k THB cash plus insurance lol.

Most if not the vast bulk of expats below 45 are on some form of tourist visa or derivative quasi tourist visa.

The older generation (retirees) have mostly been priced out of Thailand since Covid kicked off, or hanging on by a thread.

New generation came in from 2021/2022 onwards (tonnes of Americans at first, then Russian's).

European expats have been culled left right and centre.

 

[backpacker]

It’s interesting why they open a bank account on a tourist visa.

Nothing surprising. It is absolutely fine when they do that: Thai Elite is a long-term visa (exceeds 12 months), categorized under Tourist Visa with code PE (see my post #52).
BoT allows Thai banks to open any sort of account for holders of a long-term visa, no matter what categorization.

 

[tyrexoid]

Actually you have to park 400K THB in a Thai bank account 2 months prior applying then let it 1 more month during consideration period. After you get your passport stamped with the 1 year extension you are free to use your money the way you want for the remaining 9 months.
Cost of extension is 1,900 THB per year. You may want to add a multiple re-entry permit along the extension for 3,800 THB (alternative is 1,000 THB for each re-entry permit) in order to go in and out Thailand as you wish without cancelling the extension.

is it only for extension, or for initial application to this type of visa as well? What about bank statements from abroad, they don't consider it?

@wellington as you mention CRS, for almost a decade Thailand is already getting financial accounts data on it's residents from USA (FATCA) and it doesn't look like they are interested in changing anything about foreign income.
About thai elite visa cost - I meant, if you buy 5 years visa it costs 600k thb, but before expiration they offer you to buy additional 15 years for 400k thb. One option is also buying 20 years visa with 1 mio thb at once.

FATCA is a one way reporting, voluntary one btw, there's a form a financial institution will ask you to sign if they comply with FATCA and you sign it but voluntarily. There's no reporting from US towards other countries, only one direction, from countries to the US. As far as I know. (US will get tired of reporting all its financial accounts to all other countries it's practically impossible, and US also would never do it, since it undermines national security... they'll do such thing only if they'll become a 3rd world country after war with China lol, so China will get reports from all other countries into itself, but won't report its own people to other countries since nobody can force it to do so, just as example)

 

[zzzzzz]

is it only for extension, or for initial application to this type of visa as well? What about bank statements from abroad, they don't consider it?


FATCA is a one way reporting, voluntary one btw, there's a form a financial institution will ask you to sign if they comply with FATCA and you sign it but voluntarily. There's no reporting from US towards other countries, only one direction, from countries to the US. As far as I know. (US will get tired of reporting all its financial accounts to all other countries it's practically impossible, and US also would never do it, since it undermines national security... they'll do such thing only if they'll become a 3rd world country after war with China lol, so China will get reports from all other countries into itself, but won't report its own people to other countries since nobody can force it to do so, just as example)

Personal accounts of non-resident aliens in USA are reported to other countries via FATCA since 2014.

 

[bnpsu]

Thailand doesn't have CFC rules, so you are allow to manage the company from within Thailand, with your business and team team being foreign.

 

[itsmemario123]

Thailand doesn't have CFC rules, so you are allow to manage the company from within Thailand, with your business and team team being foreign.

So I can share dividends from my offshore company without any penalty? And I would get a paper telling me that I presented my taxes properly?

I want to move the funds from an offshore company to my personal account so I can buy properties in my home country (or other contries if I like them) and I'm pretty sure that when I appear with a bunch of money from nowhere they are going to ask, so I want to show them that I already taxed that money (although it is 0% tax, but is not the same as tax evasion).

PD: I'm going to move from country to country each 6 months or so, so no permanent tax residency for a while, but I'm afraid that when I end my digital nomad adventure my country asks me for the money I have in my account when buying properties and I'm not able to show them that they have not the right to tax me for that money.