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skatewash

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Everything posted by skatewash

  1. I'm guessing he is referring to the Phuket Provincial Health Office located on Narisson Road near the southeast corner of the Narisson and Surin Road traffic circle. https://goo.gl/maps/G6XZ6Wo1F1a9tWR7A This is the place where one can get the yellow covid vaccination booklet (passport). They have also occasionally hosted walk-in vaccination clinics and often will give recommendations of places that are holding walk-in vaccination clinics on the day you ask. If it's the wrong place, hopefully DanBlack can correct.
  2. To the OP: Definitely try this first as it's the best way. If they give you an appointment for your first dose they will also do so for your second dose. This is the way that the vast majority of Phuket residents received their two jabs. If not able to get an appointment through phuket.win you might try at Patong Hospital on Wednesday mornings when 50 doses of Pfizer are usually given out at a walk-in clinic.
  3. Seens to me the word renewal is appropriate in that there is a difference between the requirements for the first applicaion for an extension of stay and subsequent extensions of stay. Namely, the first only requires that you have a balance sbove 800k for two months before your application. While the second requires that you have maintained a balance above 800k for three months after your previous ectension of stay and then a minimum balance above 400k until two months before your current application during which latter period you have to maintain a balance above 800k. In other words, renewing an extension of has more stringent financial balance requirements than the initial extension of stay. The term renewing captures the distinction between the initual and subsequent extensions of stay.
  4. Some people think there are two kinds of people in the world:: lumpers and splitters. Lumpers like to focus on what things have in common, while splitters like to focus on what makes things different. If you're a lumper anything relating to an endorsement in a passport that allows one to enter, leave, or stay in a country for a specified period of time could be called a visa. The neat thing with this is that you only have to remember one word: visa. Everything is a visa, Of course, visas are not all the same, but we can use one word and cover the whole waterfront. If you're a splitter you recognize that there are significant differences between visas. Some visas can only be obtained outside of the country at embassies or consulates from the ministry of foreign affairs. These visas allow one to enter the country and get a permission to stay in the country for a specified period of time. These visas are good during their period of validity. They only allow one to enter a country during that period of validity. Other visas are purchased from the immigration offices in the country from the Royal Thai Police division that handles immigration matters. These visas don't allow you to enter the country which makes sense because you're already in the country. What these visas do is allow you to stay in the country by granting to you permission to stay in the country for a specified period of time. If you want to leave the country you need to purchase another visa that is sold by the immigration offices that allows you to re-enter the country and resume your current permission to stay. Now, splitters when they see a situation like this have a strong desire to call these two different kinds of visas by two different names. Lets call the first category "visas." Let's call the second category "extensions of stay." If you're talking to a splitter and they say they have a visa you know they have something that was obtained outside the country, that has a validity period, and that when you enter the country with one results in you being given a certain permission to stay. If the splitter says that they instead have an extension of stay, you know they have something that was obtained within the country, that comes with a permission of stay, and that if you leave the country with another kind of visa (which splitters will call a "re-entry permit") you will be allowed to re-enter the country and resume your existing permission to stay. Both lumpers and splitters exist in the world. However, if you are trying to get an accurate answer to a specific immigration related question you are going to find it easier to use the terms of art used by the splitters rather than the all-inclusive term favored by the lumpers. Or you can just use the general term "visa' and then spend some time getting everyone to understand what sort of "visa" you are talking about. The choice is up to you. But I suspect you will find that the people answering your questions will tend to use the different names "visas" have when describing how you can do what you want to do in precise and unambiguous terms. I hope that would be an understandable tendency. The alternative is to give answers that may or may not fit the questioner's situation, may in fact be the wrong answer, because of misunderstanding what the questioner has in his passport.
  5. Wild suggestion: as it appears that the smart queue system is not working with foreign passport numbers, maybe you can try the pseudo-Thai National ID number that was issued to you if you received any covid vaccination in Thailand. It's the 13-digit number starting with "600000." It's unique to you, tied to your name, and it's in exactly the proper format of an actual Thai ID number.
  6. Yes, you won't get a Phuket stamp for a no-financials 15 month agent package. It will be done upcountry not at Phuket immigration. I don't know what Phuket immigration's attitude is if you subsequently want to get your extension of stay in Phuket. It may or may not be possible; you may be told to just continue using your agent. It may usually take 3-4 weeks but my friend just got his visa/extension through an agent and it took over 100 days. I don't know why anyone would willing get involved with an agent unless there was no other way.
  7. Yes, of course, they will if they are interested. But there's nothing you can tell them that will make them less interested. I think you will find that in some cases credit cards no longer get restricted unless you tell the credit card company you are visiting a country. At least that is my experience with three CapitalOne credit cards. No problem when I use them in Thailand. I have told CapitalOne nothing about the fact that I am in Thailand or that I live in Thailand. I think it is a huge mistake to inform US financial institutions that you don't live in the US. If not today, it could become a huge problem tomorrow. New cards are delivered to my virtual mailbox address in the US, and I have them forwarded to me in Thailand by that service. If CapitalOne took an interest in it they could easily tell that I make purchases primarily in the US and in Thailand.
  8. I prefer using Googles advanced search facility when searching for content in aseannow.com: https://www.google.com/advanced_search Under "Find pages with..." I find the "all of these words" and "any of these words" the most useful, sometimes "the exact word or phrase" can also be useful. Under "Then narrow your results by..." I always fill in the "site or domain" with aseannow.com I seem to get better results doing this than I would get using the internal search within aseannow.com
  9. Thai immigration has an interest in your principal. If you put the money in a savings account there is no possible loss to your principal. If you put the money in a mutual fund loss of principal is very much on the table. Thai immigration will not accept putting your money in anything that is not immediately available or anything that risks your principal.
  10. Not sure passport "washing" is still a thing. All entrants to Thailand are in Immigration computers, including in many cases biometric data (picture, fingerprints). What is in your current passport is just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak.
  11. You would consider it if it were easier, cheaper, and faster. It really depends on which country you are talking about. For the US it's much better to renew via US Embassy Bangkok than back in the US.
  12. I'm inclined to think it was a mistake on the part of immigration. In any case the person should renew their passport as soon as possible and take it to Thai immigration to have the stamps transferred from the old to new passport. I suspect that there may be an issue doing that (the permission to stay being longer than the passport was valid) and if there is it's best to get it cleared up as soon as possible. In any case, to be legally in Thailand a foreigner must have a valid passport and a valid permission to stay issued by immigration. Lacking either of those things is a serious problem. If the person is a US citizen he can renew his passport entirely online and by mail at US Embassy Bangkok with a 2 week turnaround time.
  13. Yes, whenever I'm tempted to complain about US Embassy Bangkok I just think about the Brits in Thailand and refrain. ???? I think passport renewal via US Embassy Bangkok is an excellent service and in that respect Americans in Thailand are very fortunate.
  14. Works for Bangkok bank, doesn't for Krungsri Bank.
  15. Through US Embassy Bangkok the wait has been about two weeks.
  16. The situation is quite different for American citizens. Passport renewal through US Embassy Bangkok is cheaper, easier, and much faster than it is in the US. I don't know what passport renewal is like through US Embassy Lisbon, but almost certainly better than in the US. Probably best for the OP to renew as soon as possible.
  17. You only need do it once. Foreigners need to do it because they open accounts using their passports, while Thais use their National ID numbers which are their Tax ID Numbers.
  18. You received the PND-90 Thai Income Tax Return because you (or someone on your behalf) probably filed one last year to reclaim your tax withheld on interest earned. That's normal, it's just what the Thai Revenue Department does. If you don't plan to file a PND-90 this year, they won't send it to you next year. If, however, you do plan to reclaim tax withheld on interest earned this year then I have the following suggestions: 1) Go to your Thai banks at which you have savings accounts and have them register (associate) your Thai Tax ID with your savings accounts at that bank. The purpose of doing this is that if you have a Thai Tax ID associated with your savings account they won't start withholding tax (at 15% rate) from the first baht of interest earned but only after you have earned 20,000 baht. For many people this means that no tax will be withheld and therefore you won't have to ever file a Thai Income Tax Return (PND-90) to reclaim that tax. Note that this does not work for fixed deposit accounts, those accounts will always have tax withheld on interest earned. This suggestion is only for regular savings accounts, e.g., Krungsri Bank's Mee Tae Dai Savings account. 2) Consider filing your Thai Income Tax Return (PND-90) online. This is not for everyone. If you enjoy doing puzzles you might enjoy this. Because everything is in Thai it is a bit challenging if you do not understand Thai, but it is possible. This is what I do every year. First, I use Google Chrome browser with translation from Thai to English turned on. Second, I use Google Lens app on my smartphone to translate Thai into English for things that the browser doesn't do (e.g., text on buttons). This is the website to file your PND-90 online: https://efiling.rd.go.th/rd-cms/ The actual form is pretty easy to fill out. Remember that you are basically entering the amount of tax withheld by your banks. Assuming you are only filing to reclaim interest (because you don't own any other taxes) then you will be getting a refund equal to the amount of tax withheld. After submitting you will be getting a check in the mail in about 3-4 weeks. 3) Go to your local Thai Revenue Department. They will help you fill out (or more likely do it themselves) a PND-90 Income Tax Return. Again, it's a fairly simple return where you basically just fill in the tax withheld for interest earned. They will likely give you a copy of your return but if they don't ask for one. You can use this return as a model to fill out your return next year (only the amount of tax withheld will likely change), and you will be in a position to do your own tax return next year.
  19. I guess one's opinion of Thai banks is related to what one was used to in one's home country. I find Thai banks offer higher interest rates (Krungsri Bank's Mee Tae Dai savings account 0.9% APR, SCB's EZ Savings account 1.5% APR) and generally have lower fees than banks back in the US. You can have basically free savings accounts with no minimum balance in Thai banks as long as you do without the ATM/Debit card which cost more or less 200 baht/year.
  20. I was relying on the OP's statement: I don't use the Pattaya immigration office so I don't know what their policy is exactly. The OP seemed to think it was tied to the 90-Day Report.
  21. My understanding is that he is advocating that people comply with the minimum balance rules when they apply for a new retirement extension, which is why one provides a 12-month bank statement. Immigration can make the decision at that point whether the applicant has complied with those requirements or not and grant a new extension or not. Many immigration offices do it exactly this way, although it seems that Pattaya is one office that additionally wants to see that minimum balance requirements are met at additional times during the year. Tying it to filing 90-Day Reports compels people to make their 90-Day Reports in person, while to comply with the 90-Day Report requirements one is allowed to do so by using the online application or by mail. There is nothing preventing the immigration office from checking that the applicant complied with minimum balance requirements at all times during the relevant period (which is the reason for the 12-month bank statement) when applicant requests another retirement extension. The additional checking is not required by law (if it were all the immigration offices would be doing it) but is rather the policy of a particular office. If there are no consequences for not following this policy then it doesn't seem unreasonable to me (especially in covid times) to attend immigration in person the fewest times required.
  22. Nearly all the other immigration offices are content to wait for the applicant to apply for their new extension of stay and check their compliance with the requirements for their last extension at that point. If they haven't complied they don't get their extension of stay approved. Pattaya is one of the very few immigration offices to decide to both do that and additionally ask the applicant to attend the immigration office in person at additional times throughout the year. People can chose to satisfy their obligation to file 90 day reports by using the online application that immigration has provided for that purpose or to use the mail to file their 90 day reports. Both of these avenues which are allowed by immigration offices have the effect of reducing the number of visits that applicants must make to the immigration office. I think it's pretty obvious why in the time of covid that might not be such a bad idea.
  23. If for every month of the year you have FTT (Foreign Telegraphic Transfer) entries showing the money arriving into your account then you needn't bother with Credit Advices because it's apparent that the transfers were international transfers. If on the other hand, you have the entry marked in some other way (not FTT) then you may need a Credit Advice from the originating Thai bank. the credit advice in that case shows that it was actually an international transfer. The confusion or misunderstanding between you and your bank manager may be that all your monthly transfers are in fact, marked FTT (indicating an international transfer) and yet you are asking for Credit Advices that you don't need nor can he help get them for you as the evidence that the transfers were international is already indicated by the FTT entries in your passbook. You already have the evidence you are asking for. If any of your entries are not marked FTT then you can show those to your bank manager and ask his help in getting a credit advice from the appropriate bank. He should be able to tell you which bank that might be (it won't be Bangkok Bank).
  24. Definitely not required in Phuket. Some have reported it's required in Pattaya but there appear to be no consequences for failure to comply. Compliance with the terms of your retirement extension can be determined when you apply for next year's extension, so the the 90 day check is essentially redundant and unnecessary.
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