Thoughts on my strategy to avoid taxes? - getting paid in Thai account?

[slaydoomer123]

I have recently been looking into "optimizing" my taxes.

I am a EU citizen, Eastern European. My online business has been growing and in recent months I have reached about $15K USD per month, paid monthly by an Australian company. I used to get the money in Revolut, but as my accounts get bigger, it seems dangerous to do it like this, especially with CRS - and the fact that the money is held in another EU country.

My wife is Thai and recently I have been living in Thailand.

I have just opened a Thai bank account and I am planning on getting the money paid by the Australian company directly into my Thai account. Then I will be getting some of it in Cash, sending some to my wife's acct, and investing some in stocks under wife's name, mostly keeping bank balances as low as possible. I also trust my wife a lot, we have been living together very happily for years.

I am thinking that since the money is going from Australia to Thailand, and bank balances at end of year are kept as low as possible, my country's incompetent government can't steal it away from me?
Should I worry about the Thai government?
Anything I should consider?

 

[slaydoomer123]

The more I read about this....it seems that I may be taxable on foreign income in Thailand if remitted in the same year it is earned. Or is that only in theory?

I could use some help and your thoughts /experience about the best way to do things. Thank you.

 

[daxbr]

The more I read about this....it seems that I may be taxable on foreign income in Thailand if remitted in the same year it is earned. Or is that only in theory?

I could use some help and your thoughts /experience about the best way to do things. Thank you.

Have you officially moved your permanent residence from eastern Europe?

 

[slaydoomer123]

Have you officially moved your permanent residence from eastern Europe?

I have not.
I have now been in Thailand for 2 years.
Although I have to go back to my home country next year and I might be there 180+ days.

 

[daxbr]

I have not.
I have now been in Thailand for 2 years.
Although I have to go back to my home country next year and I might be there 180+ days.

Then you may be a taxpayer in your EU country. If I remember correctly, Thailand started CRS reporting on 01/01/20. Chances are you used your EU passport to open that Thai account. Wops.

 

[slaydoomer123]

Then you may be a taxpayer in your EU country. If I remember correctly, Thailand started CRS reporting on 01/01/20. Chances are you used your EU passport to open that Thai account. Wops.

My understanding was that CRS only reports end-of-year balances, which I am keeping low, and that 2022 is the date for Thailand's first AEOI as part of CRS

 

[daxbr]

I sincerely differ on that but it all comes down to your personal comfort level.

 

[nomad999]

The more I read about this....it seems that I may be taxable on foreign income in Thailand if remitted in the same year it is earned. Or is that only in theory?

yes this is it, thailand works if you keep the money outside the country and live there on your savings from past years.

if you are a tax resident in thailand you want to send something like 10-15k per year of income to get a tax return and pay a bit of taxes to be able to claim a certificate of residency.
also you want to check the DTA between thailand and your country of origin to see exactly how it works regarding taxes.

BTW I wouldn't keep any money or asset in thailand, only enough for living expanses. the corruption is rampant and you could get in trouble real fast there and get everything seized in the process.

 

[nomad999]

I wouldn't count on CRS reporting only the end of year balance ... unless you are absolutely sure of that its much more likely they report the total turnover for the year on the account.

What you want is have tax residency in Thailand and open a bank account somewhere else like Switzerland and give them your thai tax id and residence address, then you don't care about CRS since Thailand won't tax you on foreign income not remitted in the country during the year of assessment.

 

[fshore]

It's pretty clear and well established how CRS works. The year end balance is reported, not the turnover.
However, as your European government is made aware of the account they might ask Thailand for more information including all transactions in the account.

Still, if you've moved out of our old country, why not arrange things the legal way.

 

[Konstanz]

Well you live in Thailand and you wife is Thai.
I would advise to formalize documentation from Europe side that you have left the country ASAP.
We had covid in Europe etc. So you can say you had difficulties to do earlier and it's just formality. Make sure you can have tax residency certificate in Thailand

 

[Dasboot]

The more I read about this....it seems that I may be taxable on foreign income in Thailand if remitted in the same year it is earned. Or is that only in theory?

I could use some help and your thoughts /experience about the best way to do things. Thank you.

Thats the rule as I've heard it quoted a lot. No idea if that is in theory only, but in general no one cares here about what goes in & out of your account as long as its not astronomical amounts of course.

Also concur on not keeping any assets here, what I've got myself here is physical gold & cash - both can be converted to cryptos in a day or two if I have to flee. Gold can also be used as payment directly if anything serious should happen, personally I'm living in a family of police & army that should be able to help me if someone tries to extort me.

I've also got more or less the same problem with tax residency, I might just file for a formal move early this year in a few weeks & add the scamdemic as a reason for being late.

Got NO idea whatsoever if I'll get any long term problems from having started a company here, but will talk to lawyers soon & probably pay a sizeable amount to just get rid of the company - all business was killed off by the scamdemic.

Also might be able to get some valuable advice from a very experienced wealth adviser that also worked in private banking for years soon, just waiting for her to get this years business done before I ask her to help. Will be happy to share any info here

 

[Dasboot]

...as for the CRS, if you're a small fish I'd relax about that. In Norway everything is automatic when it comes to taxes for sheeple, all info is supposed to be collected - and it is for anything IN Norway, so far not even Revolut has shown up on my generated return.

The amount of data is just too much to handle, the tax offices cannot start investing everyone that now has an EMI account, and also there will be thousands of errors - my guess is that we still have a few years where anything that is in the range of normal income for a year won't even be logged internally.

 

[burden]

..as for the CRS, if you're a small fish I'd relax about that. In Norway everything is automatic when it comes to taxes for sheeple, all info is supposed to be collected - and it is for anything IN Norway, so far not even Revolut has shown up on my generated return.

It's astonishing, things take time, before Scandinavian don't have access to a quantum computer like the one Google has build or still building, it will be too overwhelming.

 

[JackAlabama]

It's astonishing, things take time, before Scandinavian don't have access to a quantum computer like the one Google has build or still building, it will be too overwhelming.

handling this insane amount of data and the type of people involved in this kind of work, it must be prone for a lot of misreportings and errors.
Also think about the countless data hacks and the high degree various kyc docs just floating around the world with the owners having no clue about their usage.

 

[Dasboot]

handling this insane amount of data and the type of people involved in this kind of work, it must be prone for a lot of misreportings and errors.
Also think about the countless data hacks and the high degree various kyc docs just floating around the world with the owners having no clue about their usage.

Exactly, so they basically have no choice other than having some threshold that lets the tiny things go, if not they'd be provoking instant pitchforks. There would simply be too many squeeky clean people who suddenly find themselves accused because of some error!

I'm pretty certain that we already see this in Norway, even though they freaking banned running a private business on money and paper only some years ago they also started letting you report in & out ONLY for less than around 4500 euros.

Why did they suddenly make it easier for people to run microbusinesses? The years leading up to that had a LOT of press on petty bureacracy stopping people doing the simplest things....

This threshold seems to be a "pressure valve" and personally I've used it the past 4-5 years to basically deduct whatever I want haha, the past years I've even stopped doing any book-keeping at all, I've just entered numbers that fit my other reported stuff ;-)

 

[StuartG]

What Nomad 999 says is the best advice!

 

[JackAlabama]

Exactly, so they basically have no choice other than having some threshold that lets the tiny things go, if not they'd be provoking instant pitchforks. There would simply be too many squeeky clean people who suddenly find themselves accused because of some error!

I'm pretty certain that we already see this in Norway, even though they freaking banned running a private business on money and paper only some years ago they also started letting you report in & out ONLY for less than around 4500 euros.

Why did they suddenly make it easier for people to run microbusinesses? The years leading up to that had a LOT of press on petty bureacracy stopping people doing the simplest things....

This threshold seems to be a "pressure valve" and personally I've used it the past 4-5 years to basically deduct whatever I want haha, the past years I've even stopped doing any book-keeping at all, I've just entered numbers that fit my other reported stuff ;-)

Agree, and if your name pops up as unruly or politically exposed in any way, I bet there will be some fishing expeditions going on.

 

[wellington]

Thai law dictates an income derived in the same tax year and remitted to Thailand is taxable, the art is to allow it to mature offshore for a year and then remit to Thailand.

 

[wellington]

Another-way to overcome CSR and TAX in thailand, is apply for one of those Credit Cards which is actually your own money. every deposit into the country would go onto the credit card which is a liability not a balance.