News Forum - Thai influencers and YouTubers targeted by Revenue Department

[Thaiger]

The  Thai Revenue Department aims to boost its tax revenue by targeting Thai YouTubers, online influencers, and online vendors. It believes that those who earn a livelihood online should pay their due taxes and predicts a yearly intake of 2.2 trillion baht as a result. The Director of the Revenue Department, Lawaron Saengsanit, acknowledged the …

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[TheDirtyDurian]

Be interesting to see if they go after the foreign Thai based you tubers out there. I'm not going to name channels, but there are quite a few making content regularly, daily in some cases, which must bring in revenue. 

There's a big difference between putting out a holiday video, and what is essentially working, advertising revenue, with links to Patreon donations and so on. 

I suspect that the guys doing this would be happy to go down a legal route, but there isn't  one available. 

[Soidog]

9 minutes ago, TheDirtyDurian said:

Be interesting to see if they go after the foreign Thai based you tubers out there. I'm not going to name channels, but there are quite a few making content regularly, daily in some cases, which must bring in revenue. 

There's a big difference between putting out a holiday video, and what is essentially working, advertising revenue, with links to Patreon donations and so on. 

I suspect that the guys doing this would be happy to go down a legal route, but there isn't  one available. 

Tax collection is indeed a complex issue. If you make it hard or punitive for people to be honest, then some will continue to be dishonest and you lose revenue. This is more to do with the definition of running a “business”. On the face of it, tax collection is simple. If you earn or make money, you pay a proportion in tax after you’ve earned a threshold amount. If only it was that simple. 
 

I also agree with the comments about YouTubers who are generating an income from the “work” they do in Thailand. I wouldn’t look to stop these people. What they do is not “work” a local Thai national can do, so why not add it to the list of permitted jobs. Better still, remove all such restrictions and let market forces dictate what happens. It seems to work well in developed nations so why not join the developed nations and stop being protectionist. It always fails in the long run. 

[AdvocatusDiaboli]

1 hour ago, Soidog said:

so why not join the developed nations and stop being protectionist.

But then they would lose all their benefits of corruption that works well for them …. Well some of them.

[PATRIQUE]

there s quite a legal route available

if you are a foreigner , depending on your status in Thailand ,  you either tax it home or in Thailand .

same as you would if you are in Thailand and run foreign business storages which you need to support online .

 

[Cabra]

Thailand will find it extremely difficult to go after anyone to bolster their income tax revenue that is not a Thai citizen or in country on a long stay visa scheme. If they did go after people on visa exempt or tourist visas (and extensions), tourism would be irreputibly harmed. However, they could change visa rules for long stay visas making it a requirement to produce tax returns for annual extensions. If anyone is in country on a long stay visa scheme for over 180 days in a given year, they would have to prove they had no earned income (else they might  owe taxes to Thailand). Investment and dividend income is a different animal entirely and can be shielded by simply not moving it into Thailand for at least 1 year after it's earned. Tax law is complicated, god forbid Thailand goes down this path... But TiT