Ajarn Tax by Chang

How much tax should you be paying?

posted on 3rd February 2010

Four years ago I responded to a thread on the Ajarn forum after a teacher experienced difficulty obtaining a refund of Thai Personal Income Tax (PIT). Since then I have obtained more than ThB 75,000,000 in refunds for teachers. The purpose of this article is to dispel some of the myths, misconceptions, scare stories and absolute mumbo-jumbo surrounding these claims. In fairness, many teachers new to Thailand will never have encountered such confusion and understandably choose to trust their employers and superiors, some of whom are blissfully ill informed. There is also a breathtaking level of corruption and dishonesty.

Thailand has entered into Double Taxation Agreements (DTA's) with several countries over the years. DTA's are not just for the benefit of teachers but cover many aspects of international taxation including investment income, pensions, and film royalties. The existence of an agreement does not therefore automatically indicate a teaching exemption.
The terms of these agreements differ from one to another, but most provide for teachers to be exempted from PIT, usually for the first two year visit to Thailand for the purpose of teaching. Where it is applied correctly the exemption is for the full two years of the contract and not just two income tax years. Thus, if a teacher commences work in September, year 1, works through all of year 2 and ends his contract in August of year 3 he will be eligible for a refund for those parts of years 1, 2 and 3 when he was working in Thailand.

The American agreement, for example, exempts teachers who were resident in the USA before commencing their first Thai teaching contact. The teacher does not need to be American, but to have been an American resident prior to visiting Thailand.
There are agreements, notably with Canada, South Africa and New Zealand which do not provide an exemption for people who were resident in those countries, whereas other countries, such as Eire, do not have agreements with Thailand at all. The Revenue Department often apply this aspect incorrectly and refer to a teacher's nationality in determining a claim. Obtaining a refund for a teacher from, say Canada, who was resident in the USA prior to Thailand adds an extra layer of bureaucracy to the procedure, but it is possible. Since the exemption depends upon a teacher's previous country of residence then, upon conclusion of a teaching visit, the teacher may move on to a third country and if that country has a DTA with Thailand which includes the teaching exemption then the teacher will be exempt from income tax in the third country too. It is a common misconception that a teacher should return to his home country at the conclusion of the visit but this is not so and there is nothing in any DTA which requires this. I have seen "advice" on the TES forum that the first visit ends when a teacher returns to his home country for a holiday, but this is merely an excellent example of what happens when Thai Revenue staff invent their own conditions and a teacher lacks the expertise to challenge them.

The exemption usually applies for the FIRST teaching visit not exceeding two years although some agreements provide for a three year exemption whilst others do not stipulate the visit has to be the first such visit at all. There is, however, widespread misunderstanding of what constitutes a "visit". Individual officers attempt to combine consecutive visits into one single visit in order to deny the exemption by maintaining that several consecutive visits constitute one continuous visit exceeding two years. Officers regularly seek to apply their own conditions in these circumstances, insisting the teacher should have remained outside Thailand for whatever period of time they can think of before returning to Thailand. That time period will simply be adjusted in each individual case to ensure the teacher is denied the exemption, which is why there is such confusion over how long a teacher should remain outside Thailand between visits.

There are robust arguments against the amalgamation of consecutive visits although simply because a Revenue officer agrees on one occasion does not preclude that Officer from changing their mind twenty-four hours later if they feel they can get away with it, and teachers have handed back refunds in these circumstances without challenge, so it is hardly surprising some Revenue offices keep trying this approach.

Negotiations are now underway, using one of my clients as an example, between the Thai Revenue Department and the UK Inland Revenue under Section 25 para 2 of the UK Thailand Convention and if successful this approach should see Thailand applying the agreements more fairly, although from experience I still expect Revenue Department officers will attempt to apply their own individual prejudices wherever it suits them. The Thai side are dragging their heels but genuine progress has been made.

There is nothing prohibiting a teacher from returning to Thailand for a second or subsequent teaching visit, but that teacher must pay tax FOR THAT VISIT. Some Revenue Officers misunderstand this aspect and believe that upon returning to Thailand the teacher must pay tax for the first visit too, even if there are several years between visits. This is a different misunderstanding from that which sees Revenue officers seeking to combine consecutive visits. This argument accepts that there are two separate visits but asserts that a teacher is only permitted one visit and when a second visit is made the exemption should be withdrawn for the first visit.

After receiving a legitimate refund of tax paid during the first visit there should be no question of teachers having to repay that money unless the claim itself was fraudulent. In some instances where a teacher has left Thailand, providing a school administrator with power of attorney, Revenue Department Staff with limited experience have requested the school administrator sign a letter confirming the refund will be repaid upon the teacher returning to Thailand. School administrators are an obliging lot and will sign the letters simply because they have no power to challenge the Revenue Department. I have been surprised to find teachers are still being given advice along thses lines by school administrators.

It is not uncommon for school administrators to dissuade teachers from claiming the exemption by maintaining the teacher will have to pay tax in their home country anyway. This is generally untrue. Americans are usually covered by the Foreign Earned Income Exemption and British teachers who are not UK resident do not pay UK Income tax on overseas earnings. Generally speaking the teaching income is entirely exempt from tax in the teacher's home country but there are some occasional instances where this is not so.

It is also sometimes suggested that by banking a refund cheque the teacher is "money laundering". This comes from a misunderstanding of sections 341 and 269/5 of the Criminal Code. Money laundering is a practice whereby the proceeds of an illegal activity are given the appearance of having a legitimate origin. There is nothing illegal about these treaties and they may be viewed on the Revenue Department website. The Revenue Department are hardly likely to promote a money laundering activity on one section of their website and warn people about the dire consequences of money laundering elsewhere on the same website. Most foreign banks are, however, unfamiliar with Thai cheques and, as money laundering regulations have become stricter, we have seen instances where banks have refused to accept cheques from Thailand. My staff and I have established procedures which allow Thai cheques to be cleared through the international banking system without difficulty. I can see how a teacher, having been handed back his cheque, might think these claims are illegal if his bank refuses to accept a Thai cheque due to money laundering concerns.

In some instances teachers are told by school administrators they will be arrested at the airport if they ever return to Thailand after making a claim. That, frankly, is absurd and I have never heard of it happening and I cannot imagine why it ever would.

My favourite argument, however, is that "the school is paying the teacher's tax". It would be more correct to say the school is deducting tax from the teacher's gross and paying it to the Revenue Department. It is possible for a school to pay the teacher's tax but in this situation the regular Personal income Tax paid by the school must be rearded as additional salary, and additional tax must be paid on the tax which the school pays. This "double grossing" calculation works thus (2551BE figures):

NET SALARY ThB 1,000,000

Personal Income Tax:

150,000 NIL
350,000 @ 10% = 35,000
500,000 @ 20% 100,000

Employee's Gross 1,135,000

Employer's tax on tax
( 135,000*100/70*30%) 57,857

Total tax therefore ThB 135,000 + ThB 57,857. = ThB 192,857.

In every instance where I have encountered schools maintaining they are paying a teacher's tax an examination of the tax records reveals that the only tax being paid is the regular amount ( ThB 135,000 in the above example) and not the grossed up figure ( ThB 192,857 above).

I have known teachers to be informed that claiming a refund is "against the law". No indication of any specific law is offered, however, just "the law" in general. This stems largely from the miserable situation many schools got themselves into back in 2003. For several years many schools applied the exemption at source, by not deducting tax from teachers' salaries, relying upon their Thai accounts staff to determine who was eligibale for relief and who was not. This resulted in several schools receiving tax demands from the Revenue Department where they had failed to deduct tax from teachers who were not eligible for the exemption. In the muddle that ensued Thai Revenue staff misinformed Thai school administrators of the proper regulations, those administrators provided school Principals with mis-information, and many teachers paid taxes unnecessarily. Others skipped the country leaving their schools to foot bills amounting to millions of Baht. In late 2009 Several Principals held a meeting with a view to adopting exactly the same procedure once more and you don't need a crystal ball to see where this is all heading.

Determining who may claim what is only part of the process, however, and as with many aspects of life in Thailand it is not what you do that determines whether a claim is successful, but the way that you do it. Anyone who thinks they are simply going to hand a form in to the Revenue Department and receive a cheque with ease will be very disappointed. Revenue staff would rather have their teeth pulled without anaesthetic than hand a Farang hundreds of thousands of Baht.

Revenue officers will often be "too busy" or maintain it is not their job. This is generally a signal that the Officer is out of their depth. Most Revenue officials are only familiar with repayment claims under ThB 10,000. Being confronted with claims for millions of Baht worth of refunds presents Revenue officers with more responsibility than they ever expected and they will consequently put off handling a claim indefinitely with all manner of ingenious excuses.

As part of the claim process the Revenue Department require internal tax documents from the school where the teacher worked and paid tax. Some schools do not provide the documents for a variety of reasons. Suffice to say, if a teacher breaks contract their refund may be very difficult to obtain. I am aware of one individual who chose to write offensive letters about his Principal and has been so mystified over the delay obtaining a tax refund he has been writing even more offensive letters to people in the hope of improving his chances. Take my word on this, it doesn't work.

It is not unusual for certain schools to underdelare a teacher's salary and consequently the tax documents provided to the teacher do not always agree with amounts paid to the Revenue Department. Sometimes the Revenue Department do not even know the teacher existed. If a school can successfully underdeclare, say, ten million Baht worth of salary, there is a potental tax saving in excess of a million Baht. When the school presents teachers with a variety of reasons (see above) as to why they should not claim and, especially, resists requests for tax documents, then suddenly begins offering a free tax refund service, teachers are seriously deluding themselves if they think they will receive a tax refund once they have left Thailand.

The Revenue Department are also highly suspicious of teachers since there have been a significant number of opportunistic claims from some who regard the Revenue Department as some form of lottery. The difficulty here is that these claims are often bordering upon fraudulent and it can only be a matter of time before someone is arrested. No doubt if and when that happens the word will go around that it is "illegal" to claim treaty relief once again. There have certainly been claims by teachers who know full well that they are ineligible to claim and, at best, these opportunistic claims serve to delay legitimate refunds since the Revenue Department have very few properly trained staff for this work so every failed claim they examine delays a genuine claim. New passports especially cause suspicion as they are sometimes an indicator that the teacher has deliberately lost a previous passport which indicated previous employment in Thailand. It is common for the Revenue to request sight of a previous passport, and where they think a teacher may have worked in Thailand previously Revenue Officers will not repay a single Baht until they are certain a claim is justified. Of course this provides yet another excuse to stall a claim indefinitely and a request for an expired passport is often simply another deliberate obstruction.

Added to all of this is the further complication that many Revenue staff and school administrators are from poor backgrounds. The knowledge that teachers are reclaiming millions of Baht sometimes results in documents being withheld and claims being obstruced in the hope of obtaining an "incentive". Following on from my success we now have a remarkable number of school administrators who have become overnight tax advisors. The ruse here is to withhold documents from my staff in order to "prove" we can't obtain the client's refund whilst offering their own services to the teachers themselves. Some schools are even employing relatives of the owners as "tax attorneys" and these individuals are the source of many misunderstandings. We even have the Thai girlfriend of one school Principal offering her services. Thai "lawyers" are not beneath offering Principals a percentage of the fee in exchange for introductions to teaching staff and this leads to some totally inexperienced individuals trying their luck. It is remarkable that these individuals weren't obtaining refunds before I arrived on the scene, and a good many still aren't. I would strongly urge teachers to request evidence of recent successful claims from any such representative before agreeing to anything. Additionally, any competent advisor will be able to explain the (fairly simple) rules which determine whether a teacher should or should not pay tax on their Thai earnings in their home country.

Unfortunately Revenue Officers have trouble differentiating gossip from the law. It sometimes takes just one Officer to have an epiphany, possibly influenced by someone with absolutely no tax experience whatsoever, and the entire process comes to a standstill in any particular office. In Thailand the uninformed opinion of somebody's older relative can often outweigh anything written in an international treaty, and therein lies the chief problem with these claims. Teachers are relying on what the staff in local Revenue offices tell them. Try explaining to Ning in Pattaya tax office that the terms she is imposing are other than or more burdensome than those imposed by the IRS, especially when her mother thinks otherwise.....it is, of course, much easier, given all of the above, to just tell the Farang teacher that these claims are illegal, that the exemption has been terminated, that it doesn't apply if you return for a second visit, etc. etc. which is where we were three years ago.

If you have any tax issue questions, you can call Chang directly on 02 742 6114 or email