Establish Foundation Service in Bangkok, Thailand

What Is foundation

A foundation is a non-governmental entity that is established as a non-profit corporation primarily for   making grants to distinct organizations, institutions, or individuals for scientific, educational, cultural, religious, or other charitable purposes. As Civil and commercial code of Thailand defines foundation property or an asset specially appropriated to public charity, religious, art, scientific, education or other purpose for the public benefit and not for sharing profit.

Foundation is established by using resources donate by individual, family or other organizations. The people who are directly involve with the management and operation of foundation are restricted to take any benefit director form the profit earned doing foundations philanthropic duties.

What is scope of activities for foundation in Thailand?

Essentially, ‘Foundations’ are legal artificial person that may workout the functions like, institute legal proceedings, employ people, sponsor visas / work permits, enter into contracts, and much more. However, fundamentally, foundation generally work for the mutual benefit or specific benefit of society and are empowered to collect donations for their ‘objective/cause, as specified in by law or regulation of foundation and issue receipts for the donation collected.

Requirements for setting up Foundation
Name:

A foundation in order to be registered should carry its own identity and it own name to be recognized legally as an artificial person.

Objects or Causes:
 A foundation to be establish under Thai law should have cause or objects/objectives under the scope of which a foundation would carry out its operation. A cause is, basically, purpose, aim, mission, vision or director for any foundation. An applicant or the founding member has to be very clear about its cause or risk losing its registration.

Financial adequacy:
  An asset of 2,00,000 – 5,00,000 Thai Baht has to be put in a local bank account depending on the sustainability for the purpose of Foundation and this has to be validate by the bank confirming the balance in the account. The proof of existence of money in the bank has to be submitted along with the application.
The difficulty here is that ‘Foundation’ cannot open a bank account under its name unless it has been registered so the amount has to be deposited in a person’s bank account preferably one of the founding member of Foundation and be transferred once the Foundation registration is complete.

Rules for the Committee of the foundation:
Clear rules for number of the directors, appointment of the directors, term of office of the directors, retirement of office of the directors’ ad meetings of the Committee has to be laid out in writing for the submission with an application to be filed. For the initial registration of the foundation there must be at least 3 persons committee to conduct its operation, preferably

• President
• Secretary
• Treasurer

Regulation or by laws:

Regulation for management of the foundation, the management of the property and keeping of accounts of the foundation, management of the financial transactions and provision and conditions of dissolution of the foundation should mentioned with clarity on the by-laws or regulation of the foundation
Office address:  Foundation must have a proper address for foundation’s principal office and all of its branch, the address of foundation:

• Should not use the location of any government offices as the foundation’s office, except for the case that the foundation is established in accordance with the policy of the government.
• Should not use the public place, sacred item or holy subject place such as shrine, provincial place of worship, or monument as the location of the foundation’s office.
• In case the foundation has set up any branch offices, the foundation shall notify and register the branch office with the registrar of the Foundation Registration Area Office of the area that the branch office is located.

Statutory minutes of meeting: Statutory minutes of meeting has to be presenting regarding establishment of Foundation.

Upon preparation of the above listed paper the application has to be filed at local district office where head office of foundation is to be situated. Then, the District Office will evaluate the application. The District Office will transfer the application to the Ministry of Interior. If the Thai Foundation has any objectives that are relevant to any other government department, the Ministry of Interior will send the application to that department for consideration.

The entire application procedure may take up to one year after which the applicant will be informed of the Ministry of Interior’s decision and upon approval certificate of foundation registration is issued.

Registering foundation is Thailand is lengthy and complicated mainly due to registration process demanding a lot of detailed documents. We at P&P International Legal can assist you to overcome your difficulties and hassles to ensure your foundation gets registered successfully.