KhunHeineken

There are a lot of people on welfare like this guy, and, like I said in another post, people like this get to vote, so both major parties have to throw money at welfare recipients come election time. There are whole suburbs of house commission / welfare recipient locations. Mount Druitt is / was one of the worse in Sydney. How is this on topic, well, the government has to raise tax to give to guys like this, and what makes up a lot of the $12 cost of the schooner of beer at the pub, tax.

Any savings in alcohol would be lost in public transport / fuel anyway.

So true, but Australia also has another BIG problem. The "hand up" has turned into a "hand out" over the years, with many now on welfare as a lifestyle choice. The welfare bill got bigger from today with more hand outs. https://www.9news.com.au/national/january-1-2025-changes-australia-centrelink-criminal-underpayment-passport-fees/8e58678a-4455-43c9-9ccc-6c2033d19d97 Problem is, the people on welfare get to vote, and now outnumber the workers, so it will just keep going in the same direction with Australia's welfare bill getting bigger and bigger. Thus, you can expect the AUD to continue to have downward pressure. It's difficult for a country to increase productivity when their government gives people money to stay home and play the X-Box.

I disagree that 90% of the listings are not actually for sale. Simple as that.

And the Thai government's possible, and easy solution to that is to make every foreigner produce a tax clearance certificate at extension time. Obvious, isn't it?

As I said to another member, he volunteers the information, including his financials. Do you have a comment to make about his circumstances? For someone who ONLY has the pension to live on, are they better off, financially and life style wise, to be living in Australia, or Thailand?

$1240 for passports for mum, dad, and two kids, before they even look at a small holiday to Bali or similar.

We will soon be buying back our own gas from the countries we have exported it to, but at a higher price. It would be funny, if it wasn't so serious for the Aussie consumer.

Interesting article. Paul Keating commented in 1986 that Australia risked becoming a Banana Republic. It seems we are already there. https://www.innovationaus.com/in-2019-were-a-banana-republic/ This sums it up pretty well: “Australia is devolving quite rapidly now from a developed economy to a developing economy.”

It is officially the most expensive passport in the world. No more 64 page passports. So, the cut the amount pages by half, and raised the price significantly. Just another back door tax.

For you, living in Thailand will become more expensive. Note I said more expensive, not unaffordable. If you begrudge giving the Thai government money for nothing, you are a prime candidate for definitely considering doing 179 days in Thailand and the rest of year somewhere else.

My latest thread, for example. I am informing members of the new cost of Australian passports. What have you contributed?

How many expats transferred enough money before 31/12/23 to live on for the rest of their life, given that one's end date is not know? Sure, some will cruise along on past transfers for a while, but for many, they will end up having to deal with Thai remittance tax in some way, shape or form.

Did you ever consider they may have designed it so the only way to get a tax number is to go through an agent, of which the TRD staff take a commission? Similar to those using an agent who do not have 800k in the bank for an extension. Maybe all of this is just another "tea money" revenue stream. Who knows? We will have to wait and see.

Going by you 10% figure, customers would be wasting the agent's time, so not point doing it to that degree.

Are you suggesting, and based on your figures, with 1135 properties for sale in Phuket, on only one website, but I'll use that website for example purposes, 2 out of 20 is 10%. That would mean 1135 x 10% = 135 properties that are actually for sale out of 1135, just on that one website. I'm not saying the practice doesn't exist, but to that degree, I don't think so.

Not an adjustment to your finances, as such, but an adjustment in the location of your residence for 6 months of the year may see you saving a reasonable amount of money.

If you saw a property listed on a website, and went and had a look at the building, and the area, maybe even spoke to a few residents in the car park, and then rang the agent about doing an inspection, only to be told "that is old listing, not for sale now, but can show you other place in different building" would you say "oh, great" or just say "no thank you" and hang up?

I agree. There might be some lazy ones that don't take a property off the website, but when they get some calls about a property that is not for sale and it wastes their time, what's the point of leaving it up on the website? Sure, some of them might leave a few there as "bait" properties, but most prospective buyers will just hang up the phone.

Ohhhh, he owns the structure, but he sure doesn't own the land it sits on. A fine investment indeed.

Well, go ahead, put a percentage on it. I bet it still shows a massive oversupply, and they are still building more. You do know about supply and demand market forces, don't you?

A little contradictory. You say there is a need for focused discussion, and then say it was right to shut conversation down because it was scaremongering. We are all adults here, and many chose to live in Thailand to escape the "woke" and political correctness BS of our various home countries. That "link" was obviously to hundreds of members, with many members who did not consider it, later on agreeing about its possibility, yet, delete, delete, delete, delete as scaremongering. Question for you, if it was "scary" back then, while isn't it still "scary" now? Fact is, little has changed, and we are all still in wait and see mode. In my opinion, it's only right that all members can put all things on the table for this one, because anything is possible in the near future, and I am glad that more free speech is allowed in relation to collection and enforcement, because without these two things, the Thai's have no tax remittance policy at all, so they must have something up their sleeve by way of collection and enforcement.

At least I post some content. Now, how about those expensive Aussie passports? Or, will you say, it's up to the Australian government and none of your business?

The member has three threads running on the first page of this forum. The member has volunteered information on his "life style choices" right down to posting his fortnightly financials. Obviously, he has no problem discussing them, so why do you???? Feel free to put me on ignore and allow others to post freely without your off topic and trolling posts. Your input will not be missed.

On top of a 15% increase last July. I wonder how much next July's increase will be. How can the Australian government justify having the most expensive passport in the world? They will probably keep the price the same, but lower the pages to 24. It's just a rip off.