gearbox

The old, bigger and IMO safer Tigerline ferries serving these transfers were retired and now it seems all the transfers are done with speedboats. These are fairly small, I would say most are fibreglass made, with a couple of powerful engines and a lot of passengers packed in...looks like a sea bus. With high speed and high waves the boat will thrash into the water with high force, so this one probably either had a building defect, was overloaded, or was going too fast in high waves in order to break. We were early this year in the area with expedition sea kayak, we lost 5 rivet joints from constant thrashing in high waves. Hopefully they got the passengers' possessions in dry bags, otherwise all the passports and phones would be gone.

The article is about the domestic tourists, not international arrivals. The "visits" are probably the nights spent in hotels.

The Thais have much better deal than most of the countries in Europe, they don't pay anything, only collect. Compare this to Europe where millions of so called refugees from that shole Ukraine are collecting benefits for almost 2 years. No wonder the far right is rising fast everywhere there.

Why not? Bob is probably looking to upgrade his breakfast from Chang to craft beer, any new ways to make money are probably of interest.

In Australia the government cares about the pensioners within the country, not those receiving OAP overseas. Give the resident pensioners extra $5, they'll happily vote for anything which hurts the pensioners overseas. Divide and conquer.

Could you provide a link to the accident insurance with unlimited coverage? That would be a good option to consider if they do pay out.

There are providers which can insure at pretty much any location, no travel requirements attached. If his policy expired he could buy a new one immediately.

Yep the hospitals seems to pay commission to bring them patients, however mistakes do happen. My gf was involved in an accident 2 weeks ago, and the ambulance brought one of the injured (Thai) to one of the private hospitals in Samui. The hospital made quick assessment that she may not have money to pay, and she was expelled immediately to the government hospital.

I have done both of them many years ago at the same time. You need anaesthetic only once, I believe that's the main reason. It is way cheaper in the west with only one hospital admission.

Pak Meng and the surrounding beaches, south of Ko Lanta, however no western food there and very few foreigners.

May happen one day, but unlikely in 2024. The China - Laos trains move around 5000 people per day, this is around 1.8 mil per year. Expecting around 20% of the passengers to be Thailand bound tourists is too optimistic. A friend of mine was in Luang Prabang last week, said the place was packed with Chinese tourists. Makes much more sense for the Chinese to go there, easier logistics.

IMO Haad Yuan is the best beach on the east side, but hard to get to. Beer is expensive even in the shops.

There are sandflies, but not too many....nothing like Oz or NZ. The Bottle beach has them too.

It is easy to get distracted or fall asleep in bus or plane. Years ago I had my Kindle stolen during my flight from KL to Kathmandu. The seat next to me was empty, I placed the Kindle there and started taking shots of mt Everest through the window, when I turned around the Kindle was gone.

The Chinese real estate sector is in distress, which IMO is very good thing. It would be good if the Aussie government has the guts to smash the property speculation cockroaches the same way.

I saw an interview with an IMF person a few days ago, they upped the Chinese growth forecast for both 2023 and 2024, along with many of the leading investment banks. China has plenty of interesting places to be seen, and with the massive infrastructure built it is much easier to access them now. The domestic tourism is on the rise.

According to the law you are tax resident of Thailand if you stay more than 180 days in "tax year" in the country. AFAIK the Thai tax year is the calendar year, the Oz tax year ends at 30th June. So what is tax resident? Simply put it is someone required to file tax return and maybe pay tax, although Oz doesn't require filing even if you are resident in specific circumstances, e.g you are way below the tax free threshold etc. Depending on legislation you can be a tax resident of more than one country. Also depending on the legislation the tax may need to be paid on income not derived in the "taxing" country, see for example how Spain and soon Portugal is taxing residents and retirees. In short, clear as mud, it depends on the individuals where they want to be taxed and adjust their circumstances and moves. All governments want to grab your money, that's the first rule.

That's not quite right....quoting from the link 4MyEgo posted: "For departing long-term residents the four factors will not need to be applied. Rather, it will be necessary to spend fewer then 45 days in Australia for this year and the previous two income years. This means that Australians moving overseas would need to be overseas for three years before they could change tax residency, unless they fell within the special foreign employment rule. This will make the process more difficult for some individuals and is likely to produce some inequitable outcomes, for example, business owners who will not be taking up external employment. " To go non-resident you need to spend less than 45 days in the current financial year and the previous 2 financial years.

Nowadays if you provide the tax file number to your broker, the franking credits are prefilled in your online tax return and automatically deducted from the tax payable. So in the 10000 franking credits case above, they'll offset your 10000 tax to be paid, and you don't have to pay tax.

Franking credits are tax offset, not tax deduction. For example you have 50000 taxable income and 10000 tax on that income. If you have 10000 franking credits your tax is zero. If you have 15000 franking credits you'll get 5000 refund. So tax payable on income - franking credits = tax to be paid.

It depends on the components of your income - if you have interest from the banks, afaik tax is 10%, and the dividends are taxed from 0 to 30 percent depending on franking. Overall if someone is a resident and gets 40k only from dividends, there could be a tax refund of around 7.5k if all are franked 30%. The non resident would pay no tax, so 7.5k is to pocket if resident. Whether it is worth the trips to Oz depends on the person's circumstances.

Circumnavigate what....being a tax resident or non resident? With the proposed new rules it won't be that difficult to remain resident, 45 days in 3 years is easily doable.

Get well soon. My observations are that early mornings are riskier in terms of driving here, people are in a hurry to go somewhere.

Count yourself lucky. I've paid more tax than you and still paying, but the only thing I'll get is a big fat zero. The Oz gubement classifies me as wealthy, and I won't get any pension because "I don't need it". Smells like communism to me. On top of that I won't get any subsidised medicine which the old age pension retirees get. It would be much better to have the US style Social Security system.

Depends on the point of view...it is the best pension for freeloaders and dole bludgers. You can get it without working a single day.