khunPer

It's a personal choice of preferences, but I would definitely choose "retirement extension of stay" – it's not a visa – as it's more secure and simple. Secure: Because you are not dependent of a marriage to stay in Land of Smiles. Simple: Less paperwork and documentation when applying for yet another year of extension of stay, and no need for a wife to be present. The only two downhill things in my view by choosing "retirement" instead of "marriage" are: 1) You need more money in a bank deposit – i.e., 800k baht instead of 400k bah for a limited period – or higher a monthly income of 65k baht instead of 40k baht. 2) You are not allowed to work as retiree, while you on a marriage extension of stay can obtain a work permit.

My long-time girlfriend has enough work by looking after a grumpy old man like me, so she don't have time to work. She however allows me having plenty of time on my own, so just as good if she was working...

You can adjust it or reclaim by the tax return form.

Wow, was the forum really down for a week...

Military coup February 1st 2021, it's more like civil war at the moment.

That's 116,000 baht a month after rent, or 3,800 baht per day in average. Depending of the price of ladies and drinks – and how much you spend for health insurance, food, electric, water, laundry, domestic help, transport and more – it might both be enough and way too little. Life-style is pretty much like a rubber band.

Looked purely from a CO2-climate change point-of-view, tax free sales should always be on arrival. If the 360 passengers on a wide body jet in average each carry 1 extra kg of duty free on the trip, the cost in fuel is the same as 4 average "stand weight" (90kg) passengers with luggage...

Once again shows that don't travel anywhere without a proper travel insurance. It's a sad situation, but difficult to get sympathy for folks saving the normally quite affordable insurance cost and expect donations, is something goes wrong.

Really amazing – OP kindly asks about recommendations for stay on Samui in a local Samui/Phangan/Tao-forum, and most of the post are about other places – wow...

There are many beach/sea view option available in the 3k to 6k baht range, even nice beachfront bungalows or rooms. It's merely a question if you wish something more than looking at the sea or being in front on the beach? One thing to consider is transportation. If you for example fins an great place to stay by Maenam Bay or Bo Phut Bay, but wish to visit the nightlife often, you should rather consider Chaweng Beach. If you however, are looking for excursions like daylong boat trips to the marine park or neighbouring islands, or daytrip on Samui, there will normally be a pick-up service included at your hotel, and you will be brought back after the tour. In such a case, could a little more remote from nightlife destination – which can still have plenty of good restaurants and some cosy pubs – like Maenam Bay or Bo Phut Bay and several other places, be excellent options. You can use Google Street View to "walk the beaches", and when you find something of interest you will find a link to a website for further information. If you tell little more in the group here, about what you are looking for, you might get some useful suggestions for places to stay.

Unfortunately I'm never bored and spend too much time with ASEAN NOW, so I need to be very busy with all the other stuff that I have to do during a day or week. However, when it comes to web-sites I spend time to follow news, where the ASEAN NOW's news-section gives me an excellent overview of what happens in Thailand, and the forum section keep me up to date about visa, stay and other activities of interest for farangs – like suggestions of what to do, if getting bored... I also use Facebook quite a lot. Both for contact with old and new friends here and around the World, but also to get news-updates in my feed together with a few groups I follows of interest. If the feed is chosen right, Facebook is actually an excellent way to follow thing of interest in one place, even communication through Messenger has replaced most of previous e-mail contact.

The short answer is: No, not anymore... I never cared much about Xmas. In my younger days I would volunteer to make Xmas a good evening for homeless and lonely people, that was a happy experience for both them and me. Later, my girlfriend's family cared a lot about traditional Xmas, so I had to join – Okay, just enjoy it, then it's actually all right, and the food was always good. When moving to Thailand I had Xmas lights and (artificial steel & plastic) Xmas tree, so my daughter could experience Xmas – she actually enjoyed it – also the gifts that Santa brought; my CCTV did snap him, so of course Santa is true... Now she is studying in Europe, so no more Xmas tree and lights – I have plenty from shopping malls and high end resorts around me, so I can just go there if I need some Xmas-"soma"; referring to Brave New World – I'm very happy with my not too much Xmas...

You will need to start all over again. When your present extension of stay expires, so do your legal stay. Therefore your re-enter will be on new terms like visa exempt or with a new e-visa/visa from a Thai embassy. You can for example enter visa exempt and change to non-immigrant type-O domestically in Thailand.

DHL.

90 trillion, wow... But, don't forget that Thailand has a low score in PISA-tests, also for math... "In PISA 2018, Thailand ranked 68th in reading out of the 79 PISA-participating countries and economies, 59th in mathematics and 55th in science, ahead of only Indonesia and the Philippines in the EAP." Source link: Thailand PISA 2018 - Final - World Bank Documents.

Perhaps a more duty free price in the airport should be first attempt to increase sales. The products there are way overpriced; for example the so-called duty free Thai booze is way cheaper in a domestic 7-Eleven shop... However, it's not only in Thailand, but rather a general issue that duty free airport shops are overpriced. In my Scandinavian home country the rule for the duty free airport shops is that their price shall not be higher than in the domestic high street shops...

Just FYI: You can buy a standard power-of-attorney Thai-form in a paper shop for a few baht (under 50 baht). Get it filled in – preferably in Thai language – together with signed photocopies of all parties' identification papers (i.e., ID-card and/or passport), which might also include a witness or two. The land office will normally accept that – it's been used in some of my property deals at two different local land offices.

The smallest pool circulation pumps are 350 Watt and will often run 24/7. So it's pretty easy 0.35 x 24 x 30 = 252 kWh or units per month x 4 baht minimum = 1,000+ baht. You might need a larger pump, so more likely 2,000+ baht in power consumption. Chemicals etc. are fairly cheap – normally less than 1,000 baht a month – and with a bit of healthy exercise as free benefit, you can do the maintenance work yourself...

There are numerous quality pharmacies in Thailand, might be different chains in different parts of the country. If you do a bit of Google-work, you can check if there are identical brands of the medicine in question – it might have to do with if the product is still under patent or not – brands with equal active ingredients will have same effect.

Your forgot "tax resident", which in principle is all staying for 180 days or longer in the Thailand during a calendar year. Until now nobody really cared about tourists as tax residents – as long as you didn't work in Thailand – or retirees with retirement pension coming in from abroad. From January 1st this might change, but we still lack details about how taxation of foreign money transfers shall be done.

Thanks for your reply. Tax residency means that you physically stay in a country for 180 or more days during a calendar year. If you have any kind of taxable personal income, you should be able to obtain a TIN (Tax Identification Number), some banks may ask for that, even you are not fully tax resident. If you are UK resident, you should look into UK tax law, and if UK get any information from offshore banks, and how capital income and capital gain are taxed in UK, if you are not fully tax resident there. In my Danish home country, we are for example not taxed from interest and capital gain, when not fully tax resident. So, when legally tax free, it doesn't matter what a bank reports; it can even be a benefit when claiming dividend withholding tax to be reduced, when being tax resident in another country with lower dividend tax. To my knowledge, the Thai tax department won't get any banking information shared from an offshore bank. This is the trick being tax resident in Thailand – or a country with similar or even better tax-rules – that as long as funds are keep offshore, they are not taxed.

No, I make a good return – this year so far +26% – but I use a trading platform and invest myself in selected stocks.

Probably not possible anymore from 1st January 2024, but details are still missing... Otherwise, the system is that you have any kind of offshore income a place where it's not locally taxed – which might depend of your country of origin – and just leave any income/profits from one year to the next, or any later year, where it's magically has been transformed from income to saving from a Thai point of view. Savings is/was until 31st December 2023 free of income tax when transferred into Thailand. Unfortunately we don't know at present, exactly what happens after that date... Offshore investments can be done by many means. You might be able to open an offshore account with an attached stock market and currency trading platform – for example from Saxo Bank (link is for Singapore, it's a Danish investment bank with multiple local branches) or – depending of your country of origin – use a home country bank and trading platform, if your home country don't tax capital gains. Some countries also have a Double Taxation Agreement with Thailand, which might reduce dividend tax to 10 percent; note that here you need to transfer the dividends into Thailand in the same year as it's earned, and declare the dividends in your Thai tax return form...

Would probably be a (lot) cheaper to visit the local immigration office and get a letter with address confirmation; it might cost you 500 baht in fee, some places it's even free...

If you wish to change method, you need to have 65k baht minimum every calendar month during a year; furthermore you still need your bank deposit of 800k baht – if reduced to 400k during the extension period, it must be topped up two month prior to application foe extension – to be eligible for another extension of stay. Paperwork depends of where you stay and the local immigration office. Apart from the financial side, the can be variations in what paperwork is demanded.