Selling a house in a company name

[AJBangkok]

Has anyone every sold a property where the chanote was in a company name. the option to just sell the company shares does not exist in this situation. I assume at the land office the full transfer fee, withholding tax and special business tax will be paid but what will the corporate tax be at the company level. Will if be based on the difference between the cost of the property and the sale price of the property or will it be based in the appraised value of the property if that is higher than the sale price.

[Shastadad]

Are talking about selling to a foreigner or to a Thai ? makes a world of difference

If to a foreigner then, if purchasing the company is out, then the only way is to form a new company to purchase the old company and then legally close the old company

If a Thai then the seller would have to close the company and then the house and land could be sold to a Thai

But your post is confusing since you title indicates a house but your description indicated a chanote which deals with land

I have my land in a company name but that has absolutely nothing to do with the house that is on that property. The Land Office could care less what I have on the land and as far as they and my chanote is concerned there is nothing on the land

[AJBangkok]

Are talking about selling to a foreigner or to a Thai ? makes a world of difference

If to a foreigner then, if purchasing the company is out, then the only way is to form a new company to purchase the old company and then legally close the old company

If a Thai then the seller would have to close the company and then the house and land could be sold to a Thai

But your post is confusing since you title indicates a house but your description indicated a chanote which deals with land

I have my land in a company name but that has absolutely nothing to do with the house that is on that property. The Land Office could care less what I have on the land and as far as they and my chanote is concerned there is nothing on the land

My post was confusing because frankly I didn't know the house was treated differently to the land. Your post enlightened me to that fact so it may give me some options that I was not aware of.

So if what you say is correct the tax authorities will only charge corporate tax on the price difference between the purchase and sale price if the land. If the building is not listed as an asset of the company then no corporate tax is payable.

[TracyFowler]

<Nonsensical post removed - mod>

[Shastadad]

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So if what you say is correct the tax authorities will only charge corporate tax on the price difference between the purchase and sale price if the land. If the building is not listed as an asset of the company then no corporate tax is payable.

No, when property owned by a company is transferred to an individual the land office will see the amount paid and if that does not square with the original price they are going to ask questions on why it went up so much, so the house on the land will be noted and the transfer tax will reflect that increase in value

This is the reason that even Thais may keep a piece of property in a company name, since a transfer of the company owning the property incurs no corporate tax liability, just a minimal fee to change the director and / or the share holders. The same is true when transferring to a foreigner

This recently came up with my lawyer when I asked if I could close the company and transfer the property to my girlfriend and he said it would cost around 30,000 THB to close the company and then the land office would charge the full value of the company assets in the form of the transfer tax when we went to transfer the house and land to my girlfriend. His recommendation was to make her a co-director which would only cost 1,000 THB and would give her the ability to control the property upon my death

People forget that this owning property in a company name is not exclusively a "foreigner" work around to "own" property but was designed for the Thais to limit their transfer tax exposure and the lawyers have adopted it as a "loop hole" regarding foreign land "ownership"

But whatever you do you will have to consult with a lawyer that specializes in property in your area since almost every land office interprets the rules differently

Just remember that corporate taxes and land transfer taxes are different things and are managed / collected by different government agencies