Thread: The road to working for your own business legally

A lot of bollocks in this thread. It's not as hard as Butterfly makes it seem. Get a law firm to set up the company, and an accountant to do all the tax work. Three nominees are required. You will have to pay income tax every month if you want a work permit (about 2500 baht) and you will also have to pay social security every month for 4 Thai staff (about 2,000 baht).

Originally Posted by dirtydog

Just set up a small partnership for your missus, costs around 2k baht, if at a later date you want to go ltd then that isn't a problem, use a lawyer for that and the work permit it costs around 30k baht, or do it yourself for under 10k baht.

This is what my mrs was talking about and this will probably be how we do it. Too easy huh - cheers Dawg.

Originally Posted by Tom Sawyer

Otherwise forget it like you said - if it ain't broke don't try to 'fix' it.

What if it aint broke, but with minimal effort you could supe it up to be running 1000% times better for negligible cost and a bit of effort?

Originally Posted by pickel

It's not as hard as Butterfly makes it seem.

what I am saying is not hard to do, it's just the proper way to do it. Law firms can also fuckup by trying to cut corners and you might find yourself in hot water later if someone is looking for problem with you. I speak from experience.

Originally Posted by 9999

Is the 2M not referring to the value of the entire company? If so, who decides it's value?

good question, the value of the company is only a PAR value, so basically it's the total value of the shares. A company real value can be more than par value, but at this stage it is not important. Some people claims that they bring "Real" assets to make up for those capital shares at par, like IP, knowhow, their time or their computers etc... to claim this is part of the capital. IMO, it's not really clean for a small company, above all when it's not true.

Originally Posted by 9999

Probably the smart thing to do would be dump the 500K or whatever in and use it to buy an office outright as a company asset. An office I was looking at, one of those roller door jobs with sliding doors and windows, upstairs / downstairs going for 600K asking price in the area we want to set up. Of course then you need to also make sure you;re getting the best of it in the property market.

yes, the capital can be used to buy land or properties. A lot of companies do that, however the properties will be liable to special transfer taxes and capital gain tax when you sell. The good news is that you can "amortize" the property over the years, and that's a tax shield to deduct your profit from. The property will be part of the expenses.

Originally Posted by Butterfly

it's not perceived, money has to be deposited in the company account.

25% of it has to be paid up, so 500k.

^ Is that still the case if the farang's initial investment has grown?

Say you have 49% in an ordinary partnership that you initially invested 100K (and of course did no work). Now that company has grown and gas 10M bt float in the bank and worth (capitalized at) 50M bt. The ordinary partnership then becomes a ltd company (still dubious on this process), does the farang still need to bring money in to get a work permit?

Originally Posted by Butterfly

however the properties will be liable to special transfer taxes and capital gain tax when you sell.

Surely the saving on dead rent money would cover that if over a reasonable amount of time, provided your property value goes up a little. Certainly it's the only way I could justify such a cash injection into this venture.

Originally Posted by 9999

The ordinary partnership then becomes a ltd company (still dubious on this process), does the farang still need to bring money in to get a work permit?

I'm pretty sure the money can come from anywhere. The only money brought in from overseas that matter is when you buy a condo and you can get a tax break, isn't it?

^ Google told me the 25% of the 2M needed to be wired from os. I don't think this is the case though. That is more for insta-front companies all the cashed up old guys over here have I think.

Like pay some lawyer 80K, wire him 500K and wallah, company and visa.

Cant be arse to read through.

try this:

http://www.mfa.go.th/internet/attachments/103.pdf

I think the wire from overseas is for Money Laundering reason and to protect other shareholders in the company from farang dirty money

not sure if it's really implemented though, would be interesting to see

unless you have "official" income here as a farang, they might assume that money made here in Thailand is illegal, and for that reason, you can't use that for capital formation in a Thai company, it would be regarded as "cleaning money" basically

I am sure it must be the main reason for it, unless you have already official income here, they might ask for proof of overseas transfer

^ Complete bollocks.

It assumes that a) Thais don't have any money or b) that they start up any Ltd companies.

Originally Posted by Butterfly

unless you have "official" income here as a farang, they might assume that money made here in Thailand is illegal, and for that reason, you can't use that for capital formation in a Thai company, it would be regarded as "cleaning money" basically

I am sure it must be the main reason for it, unless you have already official income here, they might ask for proof of overseas transfer

To date (going back 3 years) I've been transferring monthly from family members' accounts or a few other individuals in Aus, straight into the mrs Thai account. I haven't kept a Thai bank acc.

Realise now that this is a mistake and have opened a Thai bank account in my own name to get the monthly transfers. Not sure what they'll make of that and the legitimacy of it. We can use the story that I'm a trust fund brat (defo not the case) hence all the transfers from my mother and 'friends'. I don't hold any cash in Australia (or Thailand) in my own name.

It'll be a strange feeling being back on the grid, even if it is the Thai grid.