DFW2BKK

Bringing major electronics from the US? This should be fun!

Electricity

Format

etc etc

Another delightful barb.

Sorry to disappoint you but most of the components were purchased with an eye toward making the move to BKK. The Epson projector never even made it out of the box in America.

The following may be helpful to those wrestling with these types of issues:

http://www.repairfaq.org/sam/pwrfaq.htm#ipsaud

DFW2BKK: Please let the Forum Members know how your audio visual equipment does at Customs $$$ and what components you use in Thailand that safely convert the electricity. Did you purchase the transformers in the USA OR in Thailand to deal with voltage differences?

There are many a/v shops advertised in the two most popular a/v magazines you can purchase at most larger Thai bookshops or magazine stands. There are many a/v shops some of which might have the service staff you are looking for at HI FI Center.

MANY sales staff at the HI-FI Center in Bangkok (near Big C, Across from Central World) speak English.

I suggest you check some of the advertisements in "What Hi-Fi Thailand" a popular 90 baht magazine.

I suggest you bring your speaker cable, HDMI, and any connectors from the USA if you hate wasting money on "imported" items and would like some level of quality.

In our case we had our home electricians install conduit separated from electrical conduit, for speaker wire and other a/v cable runs early in the home building process. They also installed the speakers and did connections on interior and exterior a/v.

Any local shop we purchased a/v gear had staff who would install items at no extra charge, and it was easy since the speaker wires were installed during the construction process.

Thanks kamalabob2 -- I will look into these resources as well as the date approaches. I will be renting a condo for at least 6 months before possibly purchasing my own condo so I won't be undertaking any built-in wiring in the very near term.

I am not sure how brutal the customs fees will be. My company will be handling the whole process from door-to-door and I suspect that the shipper they use will be able to get a customs-advantaged deal.

I will let folks know how this turns out.

There has been a decline. There has also been a decline in the number of large law firms operating in Thailand. The way law firms are structured financially has a lot to do with this; most London or NY magic circle firms have hitherto effectively subsidised operations in developing countries and patience has run out. In the last couple of years in Thailand, for example, Freshfields have gone and Minter Ellison turned to custard.

Who is left? All the big firms have presences here to some degree but the expensive expat partners aren't so prominent as they used to be. The firms realised that in a market like Thailand the model of flying expats in for two or three years simply didnt work because they didnt have the business and government connections local lawyers have. What you see now is many international firms with only one or two expat lawyers (eg Linklaters, Herbert Smith etc).

Baker & McKenzie - another good example - has always had a model which favoured developing local lawyers and partners instead of transplanting expats. Their model applies everywhere, not just in Thailand. They do have one expat partner now (he was promoted two years ago, but was hired locally after living here many years and was certainly not transplanted into the firm from an overseas office). I think they have around 2-3 other expat lawyers; again, all hired locally.

Very illuminating. Having dealt with a couple of the BKK satellite offices you reference I always thought the model for the mega-firms was only to hire Western lawyers who had gone native and would never leave Asia. I agree that it would be pointless in the extreme to have foreign lawyers swooping in for two-year expat stints.

After his firm bailed out of Thailand one senior Western attorney I dealt with for a couple of years proceeded to migrate to a series of other large firms as opposed to fleeing back home. But it stands to reason that few expat lawyers would be inclined to ride that merry-go-round.

In my experience, from a number of times, you go to the shop and they will install everything for you and I have never paid anything extra for this.

The thing is, I am having my televisions, projector and attendant components shipped to me from the States (courtesy of my employer). I tried to contact some guy who advertises in loads of magazines as being someone "who speaks your language" but he never responded.

Thanks to one and all.

I don't know if it still holds true, but the Diplomat bar in the Conrad (Friday nights) was very popular.

That said, I would guess that there are about 10% of foreign lawyers now that there were in the late 1990s.

Also, if you play golf there used to be a group of [lawyer] golfers who would go out at 6a.m. Sunday mornings for a round at Mong Ek (sp) near the old airport.

Thanks for the tips. Do you have any idea why there has been such a decline in the presence of foreign lawyers?

From what I can tell, they still dwell in some numbers in the halls of large law firms in Bangkok.

From the looks of things, I am starting a new career in Thailand at a time of tremendous uncertainty and upheaval (not that things are that rosy in America). Nevertheless, I plan to be in BKK longterm and make the smartest moves possible. My plan is to rent a condo for 6 months to a year -- then buy a condo with the intent of living there for at least five years.

My question for the thread relates to mortgages available to foreigners. Do you know whether the banks that deal in these loans would principally look at my salary as a means of determining my creditworthiness? Or would they also look at my American credit rating, properties I own in America, and other factors?

I suppose if credit continues to tighten around the world I may be paying for some place in cash but that would not be my preference.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Does anybody know whether the "Law Society of Thailand" is defunct?

58,000 base salary

14,500 25% overseas premium/tax gross up

36,364 housing @ bt100k pm

15,152 school 1 kid 500k pa

7,200 car allowance USD 600k pm

6,000 Annual Home leave 3 persons @ 2k each

17,400 tax equalization (difference between Thai tax on total versus US tax on base, plus gross up of tax equalization- comes to about 30% of base)

154,616 total Gross for employee

23,200 company overhead (about 40% of base)

177,816 total cost to company

I always assumed that tax equalization was a critical part of any expat deal (for an American citizen in particular), and these numbers would certainly appear to suggest that. But I have now spoken with two accountants with particular expat taxation expertise who indicate that -- even without tax equalization -- the negative tax impact is quite modest, if any, in my case. The foreign earned income exclusion, the housing exclusion and the foreign tax credits available to Americans seem to negate the supposed "double taxation" issue for me. (Add to that the fact that an American working abroad often need not contribute the usual 6.2% of the first USD 90K earned to an all-but-bankrupt social security system and I am informed I might even come out ahead.)

Senator DeMint of S. Carolina has introduced a bill in the U.S. Congress seeking to end this double-taxation problem faced by American expats so as to improve U.S. competitiveness since we are apparently the only industrialized country to tax its citizens on citizenship, if you will. So clearly, this is a problem for somebody. But perhaps not for me.

Can anyone explain? My compensation is higher than this gentleman's proposed package (although it does not include equalization based, I am told, on the premise that I will be a permanent hire). But higher compensation would appear to make me more, not less susceptible of harsher taxation. If someone could comment I would be grateful. This makes no sense at the moment.

(Lastly, I would prefer to blow my brains out than live behind the gates of a gated community in Tampa. Not for all the sit-down toilets in Florida. God almighty. But I will defend to the death the right of someone else to do so. Chacun a son gout.)

:: gf ::

I believe I may have stumbled into the answer to my own question.

It appears that beyond a certain income level, foreign tax credits are more advantageous than taking foreign earned income and housing exclusions. Through solely applying such credits, the tax burden for an American so situated who is working in Thailand basically becomes a wash. There is no double-taxation issue to speak of so tax equalization is evidently not required to achieve a tax-neutral position.

I welcome any contrary conclusions but that's my best theory. I will know for sure when I receive my formal tax analysis from the independent accountant the company has retained for me in a couple of weeks.

58,000 base salary

14,500 25% overseas premium/tax gross up

36,364 housing @ bt100k pm

15,152 school 1 kid 500k pa

7,200 car allowance USD 600k pm

6,000 Annual Home leave 3 persons @ 2k each

17,400 tax equalization (difference between Thai tax on total versus US tax on base, plus gross up of tax equalization- comes to about 30% of base)

154,616 total Gross for employee

23,200 company overhead (about 40% of base)

177,816 total cost to company

I always assumed that tax equalization was a critical part of any expat deal (for an American citizen in particular), and these numbers would certainly appear to suggest that. But I have now spoken with two accountants with particular expat taxation expertise who indicate that -- even without tax equalization -- the negative tax impact is quite modest, if any, in my case. The foreign earned income exclusion, the housing exclusion and the foreign tax credits available to Americans seem to negate the supposed "double taxation" issue for me. (Add to that the fact that an American working abroad often need not contribute the usual 6.2% of the first USD 90K earned to an all-but-bankrupt social security system and I am informed I might even come out ahead.)

Senator DeMint of S. Carolina has introduced a bill in the U.S. Congress seeking to end this double-taxation problem faced by American expats so as to improve U.S. competitiveness since we are apparently the only industrialized country to tax its citizens on citizenship, if you will. So clearly, this is a problem for somebody. But perhaps not for me.

Can anyone explain? My compensation is higher than this gentleman's proposed package (although it does not include equalization based, I am told, on the premise that I will be a permanent hire). But higher compensation would appear to make me more, not less susceptible of harsher taxation. If someone could comment I would be grateful. This makes no sense at the moment.

(Lastly, I would prefer to blow my brains out than live behind the gates of a gated community in Tampa. Not for all the sit-down toilets in Florida. God almighty. But I will defend to the death the right of someone else to do so. Chacun a son gout.)

:: gf ::

Anybody have any recommendations for a home theater installation outfit?

In the States some of these technicians charge by the hour -- others by the project. What is the practice in Bangkok?

Many thanks.

didn't you work here as an attny for 2 years? i would think that you'd already have contacts like that!

Why would I pose the question if I knew the answer? The circumstances and nature of my prior work did not lend themselves to this kind of activity. I now know I will be here for a number of years. Before I was anticipating being hauled back to America at any moment. Things change.

You must have loads of time on your hands.

Greetings all.

Could anyone recommend a farang-oriented organization populated by law firm lawyers and in-house counsel? The closest I can find is something along the lines of AMCHAM.

Many thanks.

Thanks so much for all of the great responses and feedback. Just back from a long trip to BKK and gearing up for a triumphant return on Christmas Day.

Mr. Kelly, I will definitely be in touch.

All the best.

Put a bull in with a new heifer in season and he will perform. Put in another heifer and he will perform again. As long as you have fresh heifers you can get quite a string going. But put a previously serviced heifer in, and the action stops. Works the same way with rats. This is known as "the Coolidge Effect" from the old joke in which President Calvin Coolidge and his party, and the First Lady and her party, are being given separate tours of a chicken farm. At one point the First Lady asks if the rooster is able to have "relations" more than once a day, and is told that he is able to have them dozens of times in a day. The First Lady says "Would you mention that to Mr. Coolidge?" Later it's the President's turn at the same tour stop. "Your wife wanted me to mention to you that the rooster is able to have relations dozens of times in a day." "Oh? Same hen?" "Oh, no, that wouldn't work. Different hen each time." "Ah. Mention that to Mrs. Coolidge."

Anyway, an oft-repeated, old joke... but no ginseng required.

Ginseng and other stuff? What the he11 for?

Thanks much, Steve! I appreciate it more than I can express.

I am a Senior Attorney with a major semiconductor company, and currently live in the U.S. I worked in Bangkok for two years (and for stretches elsewhere in Asia) while litigating a couple of major matters with Thai counsel. I have now set my sights on obtaining a position in Bangkok as an in-house attorney for a multinational company. I write in the hope that someone out there might be able to provide me with a lead. (I note that I have dutifully read similar topics and have begun to pursue the suggestions already offered there.)

I am a 1994 graduate of an Ivy League Law School and worked at a top-tier international law firm for 6 years prior to assuming my current in-house position. To continue preening, my expertise includes:

-- operational support of worldwide broadband and wireless businesses

-- broad technology industry knowledge

-- all types of intellectual property licensing

-- successful management of numerous multi-million dollar litigation matters

-- management of a three-lawyer team of mid-level attorneys

This is obviously a longshot, but I would most sincerely appreciate any info, here or in PM, that might help.

Thanks All!