sandrew33

You saying it doesn’t happen?

To be fair there’s new hotels built every second week and there remains myriad brilliant ones. Perhaps avoid crap old hotels and fat bar girls and you’ll have a better time.

A few years ago this was the dream but when we observe them replaced by bulk Russians, package tour Indians and those objectionable man bag wearing Benidorm types it’s basically a nil all draw at best 🙂

To be fair this isn’t a new issue either. I rented a condo in Suk Soi 23/1 for 2 years back in 2012-2014 and there were a couple of condo owners doing short term tourist rentals against the rules. My condo was directly above the pool and once a month or so you’d get young tourists (90% Brits) who would be at the pool with “friends” (mostly rentals) as late at 2-3am music on etc. it is frustrating but it is on the owners breaching the condo rental rules and they are the starting point for action. In our condo they were all Thai owners.

Plenty of Thai beaches are paradise. Just not where the manbag wearing Benidorm refugees head

Yeah, one suspects that there are a few important details of his story missing TBH

🙄

And yet in 15+ years in Thailand I’ve never needed to piss/<deleted> in the streets but I see certain demographics do this quite regularly. Why is that you reckon?

The guy is clearly an idiot but I’m unsure why every case of people being an idiot = problem with visa policy? How exactly would things be different if the Visa rules were stricter?

Nowadays they just stand around in groups and always introduce themselves and kindly ask if I'd like to buy some illegal medicinal substances, further up they road I am accosted by a lot of "sisters" who seem to be offering to comfort and tend to me for a fee 🙂

I’m not sure they need a 15 point plan to spot the African crime gangs and their employees. Just walk down Soi 4, cross Suk Road and walk down to Soi 13 with some Police detouring down Soi 11 and you’d identify about 300+ crims on any given evening. And if they need a 15 point plan to identify the criminals in Pattaya well they really aren’t fit to be Police 🤷🏻‍♂️:)

One mans perfectly comfortable is another mans <deleted>hole and many have plenty enough money that skimping on the hotel room is an unnecessary "hardship"

We are really describing the Vogue as “swanky”? Does the author live under a bridge?

Nope. The electronic boarding pass was scanned at the initial gate before the escalator up to the scanners. Was never looked at by a person at any stage.

16 years of at least monthly arrivals and this has never been an issue. But sure …

This seems an entirely insurmountable problem and I’d suggest all airport immigration processes should be cleared with your company going forward to ensure their asinine system isn’t impacted 😁

One assumes you have checked in online and so you have a boarding pass. One also assumes that the removal of the need for a boarding pass is for the purposes of the immigration gates where one step is currently the scanning of the QR code on the boarding pass. If you haven’t checked in online then countries and airports that already have done away with check in counters require you to check in at a digital terminal and print baggage tags (and boarding pass if you want one). So you’ll likely have the option of digital or printed yourself. As has been the case in many airports for years - certainly every domestic airport in Australia for example and for some time in Changi and various other international airports. This is simply replacing the boarding pass for gate clearance. And presumably you are aware that if one is too challenged to have a digital boarding pass or printed one or got one at a check in counter that the flight crew have a listing of every passenger by seat number. It’s weird how a largely expat board seems to have no actual experience or exposure to air travel 🤷🏻‍♂️

This is the entire point. Much faster.

The replies in this thread are staggering. The no boarding pass no human interaction system isn’t exactly a new thing. Many domestic systems have had it for ages and in Singapore there has been facial recognition on arrival and departure for quite a while too, As to boarding passes, you get them when you check in online and they sit in your phone and you scan then or show them if and when required. Anyone departing Thailand at swampy recently surely saw the speed benefit in the new no human interaction departure gates, just scan passport and use fingerprint scanner. Rolling that system across more parts of the airport is a win.

That headline is comic genius 🙂

It's any country you are resident in or have a legal right of residency typically, so they'll start with the country of your passport. If the broader question is bureaucrats and bureaucracy are kinda flawed and I am kinda clever and I think I might be able to get away with this then sure.. go for it and good luck to you. Tax avoidance, evasion and fraud are all massive pastimes and many are happy to engage in the lawful, the fringe and the outright unlawful and many get away with it. For those more risk averse or concerned about this sort of stuff being eventually tied into visas then I guess they'll probably try and comply rather than take the punt. The smartest course if of course to understand as much as you can about the rules and the practical operation of the rules and then to chart your course based on your own circumstances, risk appetite and stress tolerance Each to their own.

On those facts you are a Thai tax resident. In Australia you'd be a non tax resident which means you aren't entitled to a tax free threshold as that only applies to tax residents. Given you've been in Thailand for 24 years I'm assuming your Aussie bank has a Thai address for you and is withholding tax on your interest payments at 10% of the interest paid? (that would be your only tax liability in Australia) As a tax resident of Thailand you likely have an obligation to lodge a return there and any Aussie tax paid (say the 10% withholding) would be a credit under the DTA. I understand that in practice you likely aren't lodging in Thailand and arguably haven't had to under previous laws but if you wanted a technical view under the proposed new rules then I'd suggest that's how it works

And taking this further, if you are an expat living in any country solely based on visas then you need to ask yourself how much risk you want to take in this space. A significant tax audit and adverse outcome could result in non renewal of Visa in some jurisdictions. I dislike tax as much as the next person but ultimately choosing to ignore laws because you think they are dumb is a brave strategy.

I said many countries not all countries. Certainly my native Australia for one. It is theoretically possible to be tax resident nowhere yes. It’s unlikely as an Aussie because you are tax resident in Australia under the Aussie law if your domicile is in Australia unless you have a permanent place of abode outside Australia. So a transient lifestyle in multiple countries would see you remain Aussie resident. UK has both tax resident and domicile tests which work differently. Whether you are tax resident or not you still need to apply the non-dom tests including the deemed dom tests if you remain a UK citizen. While complex you have more chance of being tax resident nowhere than an Aussie does. EDIT: By the way not being tax resident in a place doesn’t automatically absolve you of not paying tax. If you are non UK resident and have UK source income then you still pay tax on that in the UK. Obviously in many cases you can plan around that but not all.

Although you wouldn’t have no tax if you advised the local authorities that you weren’t tax resident. Consider Australia - the tax free threshold only applies to tax residents. If you have ceased to be Aussie tax resident you should pay tax on your Aussie pension from dollar 1. But people don’t advise the revenue authority and keep claiming the tax free threshold.