OPINION

A taxing matter

Re: "Revenue mulls capital gains tax", (Business, July 26). The old chestnut of introducing capital gains tax on gains generated on shares sold through the Stock Exchange of Thailand has come up again.

In the past, this idea to boost tax revenues has come up against the stumbling block that the Thai government does not have the power to make most foreign investors pay capital gains tax unilaterally.

Thailand now has double taxation treaties with 61 countries and jurisdictions, most of which allow capital gains to be repatriated from Thailand without deduction of capital gains tax.

Even the small number of foreign investors who are not based in a jurisdiction with a double taxation treaty with Thailand can easily rout their trades through a third country that does, to avoid capital gains tax.

The only way to tax these foreign investors would be to renegotiate all the treaties one by one, a process that would take years and would leave Thai investors in those countries at a disadvantage.

Meanwhile, there would be a two-tier system, whereby locally based investors would pay capital gains tax and foreign-based investors (including Thais with money offshore) would not.

What is it to be Thai?

Re: "Political rifts 'haven't faded'", (BP, July 27).

Yes, the Thai nation is divided; but that reality check is not necessarily a bad thing. Rather, look on the rifts as a gift, for which the ruthlessly self-serving politicians self-elected of the past five years should be thanked. Five years of their failures have proven the old stories are no longer able to unite the nation: however loudly the dictators of tradition chant their mythic mantras, for too many those incantations now no longer work their magic to legitimise a twentieth-century status quo that allowed a minority the political means to greedily raid the national coffers.

The divides between the old and the new, between the better educated and the traditionally educated, between democracy and dictatorship, between the old men's parties and the rising groundswell for a progressive future, will not be bridged by any outworn myths. This realisation dictates that new ideals be forged to unite the Thai nation for the future, to embrace deeply overdue reforms to defining what it means to be Thai. In the now not so early 21st century, what is it to be Thai? This is a healthy discussion.

Nor is there anything uniquely Thai about this need to re-evaluate national identity: as the Trump presidency and Brexit show, the US and UK among others are going through similarly rough transitions. Painful though it be, such change is a symptom of a living nation, one that is not a dead museum exhibit. And that's a good thing.

PM's coup-de-farce

Re: "Prayut denies 3-year coup plot", (BP, July 27).

The prime minister denied he planned for the 2014 coup, instead claiming he acted on the spur of the moment.

Yet he took years planning the creation of a constitution that would enable him to hold on to power easily. Are we asked to believe the obviously well-planned takeover of a democratic government happened based on a decision taken overnight? He really woke up in the morning thinking, "let's have a coup today"?