Bank Statement of Tax Withholding

[Ratsima]

For the first time ever Revenue has asked me to supply a statement from the bank showing how much tax was withheld from interest payments. Previously they have been happy to accept my statement of the amounts.

So, I went to the nearby Kasikorn Bank to get said statement. Although I have experienced this many times, I remain astounded as to how much work a bank clerk has to do to produce a single, very standard document. (The Immigration bank letter comes to mind.)

Actually, the woman who assisted me was the Assistant Branch Manager. Of course, she needed to have my passport and passbooks. She made many phone calls and consulted with colleagues. For some unknown reason, she actually keyed my passport number into her mobile phone. She made many visits to her desktop keyboard to make various entries. She made a photocopy of my passport and passbook together which I needed to sign and which I'm sure will be filed never to be consulted again. I also needed to sign a form requesting the needed documents. She printed out half a dozen pages, only one of which was the interest withholding document. No idea what was on the others. She also made a manual entry into some sort of ledger, but there was no charge for the document.

Finally, after half an hour of this ceaseless activity she handed me the document. She was prepared to place it in a nice A4 envelope but I told her that was unnecessary. I scanned it with my phone and sent it on to my wife for approval and subsequent forwarding to Revenue.

On reflection, it was quite an entertaining 30 minutes. It's fascinating to ponder a country so mired in bureaucracy that it sometimes seems unable to budge. (On to the moon!)

After I got home I logged on to my American Express Bank account and downloaded my 1099R. This took less than a minute, required no signatures or any time and money consuming intervention by a clerk.

Long live full employment.

[brianks]

Classic example of the Thai Bureaucracy. Yes, onward to the Moon in 7 years!