keestha

PND 94 is a tax form in which an estimate has to be given of the expected turnover of the running fiscal year. Half of the tax based on this expected turnover has to be paid. PND 94 has to be submitted before the end of september, and it applies to businesses being registered on the name of a Thai person.

OP, for many Thai legal documents there are no English versions, and if there is one, often the English version is pretty murky. My ability to read Thai is limited, reading the newspaper in Thai would take me a lifetime, but surprisingly Thai legal documents are relatively easy to read. If there is an English version, it is often not so useful. The person translating is often at the loss how to translate certain Thai expressions. Even if English is your native language, it would leave you guessing.

But that doesn't mean you can play music from pirated CDs/MP3s from hard drive though..........does it?

Penkoprod

Obviously.

Here in Khao Lak they also raided internet cafe's, looking for illegally downloaded music, movies and so on.

But how do you suggest I meet Caucasian girls?

Take a diving course somewhere in Southern Thailand, preferably during the high season. Or just hang out at Koh Phi Phi, Krabi province. Ibiza-like atmosphere, lots of attractive female "Caucasian" tourists.

Not long ago I asked an accountant who has many clients in Phuket, how high the profit margin of a mini mart is. Without even having to think for a moment, she said: 15%. But maybe she was thinking of situations like mini marts attached to hotels, who of course have a higher mark up the the typical mum and pop store an accountant never professionally gets in touch with.

OP sorry for going outside the scope of your question.......To my experience, often when Thai people have a business idea, it is: mini mart. It is a type of business you don't need any specific skills for. But for instance in the area where I live, I saw mini marts come and go. Location is extremely important, and of course there is always the risk of a 7/11 opening nearby.

I just called the MCT ( ) about the licence to play farang music, and the procedure seems to be quite easy. For a restaurant the cost is 100 Baht per seat per annum, plus 7% VAT.

Documents you have to send to the MCT in Bangkok are:

1) The filled out application form you can download from their website

2) A document called "bai tabbian gan kha", it is a white or yellowish A4 sized paper , looks like a diploma, that every legally established restaurant or bar has.

3) The payment slip proving you paid the appropriate amount of money into MCT's account.

After receiving this documentation, they will fax you the licence, or send it by mail which takes about a week. The licence will be valid from the 1th of the next month.

Once I saw a sign saying "no Thai people" pasted on the door leading to the staircase in a Bangkok guesthouse. Obviously this sign was directed at would be joiners. It left me wondering how reactions would be at a sign saying "no British people allowed" in a London guesthouse.

I have been wondering if anybody ever made some statistics about this forum.

Questions that come to mind are:

The 1% (or maybe 0,1 %) most frequent posters, for what percentage of the posts are they responsible?

People kicking in more than 10 posts a day, how long on an average do they keep up this behaviour?

Many other questions to think of probably.

BTW does anyone know how I can get good maid service? Someone who can do the job without much checking and things will not disappear from the house.

If I would need a maid, I wouldn't even contemplate going to a maid service. You don't only pay for the maid, but also for the service's overhead and profit margin. I would just ask Thai people ( neighbours, colleagues, shop/restaurant owners, whoever you get in touch with), if they know anybody who is interested in a few hours of cleaning work per week.

You will get offers soon enough. Sure it is a gamble if the person is reliable and honest or not, but as you have experienced hiring someone through a maid service doesn't solve that problem.

It happened I think twice that I pushed the "report" button after seeing a thread in which bait was laid out for some kind of scam like "work at home entering data and make at least $250 per day". In both cases the thread was taken down rapidly.

It is not always so obvious though. Guesthouse raised a very valid point.

A friend of mine who has a work permit applied for a multi non imm B in Penang last week, using an agency, but he was given only a single. He told me though that several people applying on the same day were given a multi non imm O.

What!!!!???? From Penang?

Sure, just called the guy to reconfirm. Two men who were in the row at the consulate just in front of him, collecting their passports, were given a multi entry non O. He doesn't know on what grounds they were given it though.

A friend of mine who has a work permit applied for a multi non imm B in Penang last week, using an agency, but he was given only a single. He told me though that several people applying on the same day were given a multi non imm O.

Basically if you have any suggestions that would fit my lifestyle that would be awesome.

My experience is that rather lifestyle is determined by profession and not the other way around.

In my case, when I still was a bar owner, my lifestyle was very different than it is now, being the owner of a small resort. When I was a restaurant owner in Europe, again I had a different lifestyle.

Stanny you should just do what interests you the most, then your lifestyle will automatically adept to it. Do you have anything coming close to a vocation?

Figures quoted above are not completely correct, on my B50,000 monthly salary I pay B3,350 tax per month. OP, rather than asking here, go to a Thai government website.

I have known a lot of people who were half Dutch, half Indonesian (Indonesia used to be a Dutch colony), and I can confirm some of them look fully Dutch, some fully Indonesian, whilst some others look like dark haired brown eyed South Europeans. Also within the same family.

But that is not such an interesting point. I would rather get this thread back on a more interesting track:

I’m also interested in the views of others on how they feel their children will accepted in the future, both here in Thailand and abroad.

I have heard/read a few times that sometimes the mixed race children are discriminated in Thailand, because they are seen as the result of a prostitution relationship.

Does anybody who has (somewhat older) half Thai children have experiences with this?

Living in Khao Lak, we frequently drive down to Phuket to use facilities which are lacking at home, such as department stores, other highly specialized shops, and the private hospitals.

Having lunch at the island almost inevitably means going to one of the fast food outlets attached to Lotus, Big C and the like.

For a while MK was my favourite, till I forgot going to it for a while. After a few months I went to another MK branch then where we usually went, but it was a disappointing experience, and MK hasn't seen us since. Black Canyon has nice food, but after a few years I just got bored of it. Don't like suki, but Texas Suki is still OK if you are not so hungry, for a light chicken noodledish or whatever you prefer.

The day before yesterday we went to The Pizza, I think for the last time in a long time to come. Their pizzas I stopped eating a long time ago, so this time I tried a lasagna. It looked as if there was cheese on top, but I wondered if it was real cheese, it had no taste whatsoever. Really the type of food that looks/tastes like it comes out of a factory instead of a kitchen. Being a restaurant operator myself, bashing a restaurant is the last thing I would do, knowing a family depends on it, but I don't think Bill Heinecke has much reason to be concerned.

KFC and Mac Donalds are still OK for a quick bite if I go to Phuket without my family, you just want to get your business done quickly. In the Central Department store there are a few Japanese restaurants, think I tried two of them, but was not so impressed.

Right now my favourite chain(?) is Sizzlers, high quality food, nice salad bar, soup and desert included.

What are you guys thoughts about the fast food outlets? But maybe you hardly ever eat there anyway, since you are living in Phuket, and have time to go to the better places.

If I end up sitting next to a drunken Dutchmen I will change bars.

Too bad, because when we are drunk we might even give you a beer, what we of course would never so when sober.

It feels great to be bashed, it means that at least people are noticing us. Not a small achievement for the citizens of a small nation.

In Australia there seems to be a proverb: There is only one good Englishman, and that is an Englishman who goes home, and takes two Dutchmen with him.

Pictures of 4 Thai nationals employed at the workplace.

Isn't that only for first time applicants?

I forgot to mention that before the application can be handled, you have to propose a name fot the tourcounter, plus two alternative names in case there already is a tourcounter bearing the proposed name. ("yeun chue").

It is very complicated to get this licence on the name of a company limited, and impossible if a foreigner is the only person who is authorized to sign on behalf of this company.

The procedure is easy though if the licence is applied for by a Thai person who fully owns the business (the tourcounter).

The requirements:

1) The business has to be registered at the orbortor changwat, the paper needed is called tabbian bou koun tammada

2) You need papers signed&stamped by 2 businesses whose tours/other tourist attractions you are reselling,stating that you are acting as their agent

3) You need to make a tourcounter like the ones you see in Patong and so on all over the place, make photos of it of the normal photobook size

4) You need to pay a 10,000 Baht deposit which will be put in a bank, you will get a copy of the bankbook.

Mind you this licence will only give the right to resell tours and so on organized by others.

In Khao Lak there are much more tourists around than last year July and August.

This is the 21th century and I would think to use the services of a US based counselor you don't necessarily have to be in the same room with him/her anymore. Talking through skype and using the webcam should do the trick.

It would help though, if the counselor is somewhat familiar with circumstances in Thailand, or in one of those many other poor countries, where the expat's wife may notice that far more local women are showing interest in her husband than used to be the case back home.

Well, the next time we are driving from Khao Lak to Phuket I won't let my (Thai) wife behind the wheel after crossing the bridge. This is going pretty far though, no doubt this is gonna be a long thread.

Simon, are you really sure they were stopping ALL cars driven by Thais and carrying one or more farang passengers, not only cars that obviously belong to hotels, travel agencies and the like?

Sure a lot of westerners marry Thai women who are considerably younger. But for the vast majority of these women it would be difficult to find a Thai husband, since they have at least one child resulting from a previous relationship.

Always hated it if a place takes 10% service charge, never feeling sure if the money would really go to the staff. If I am wrong, please correct me. And..... I like to express my appreciation by voluntary giving a tip, but I won't do this if I have to pay this charge.

Many times customers in my resort asked my advice about tipping, and then I tell them just to top up the amount the way they do at home in Europe, if they are happy about the service. 18 Euro make it 20, or 45 Euro make it 50.Similarly, 180 Baht make it 200, or 550 Baht make it 600. I also tell them honestly that for my staff, who are getting a little bit more than the minimum wage, the tipping money represents a substantial percentage of their earnings. All the tipping money goes into a box, and is evenly split up among the staff at the end of the month. I try to discourage customers from specifically tipping individual employees (superclean housekeeper, pretty waitress), it creates envy if one person is getting more tip than the other.

Can't refrain telling the story of the biggest injustice I ever encountered in the field of tipping. When I was 19, I took turns manning the reception of an Amsterdam hotel with a Serbian guy and an American. All of us receptionists spoke several languages and had to solve all kinds of problems. We got zilch tips, but Pablo, the Colombian porter who had to carry the suitcases for the guests, took in about 20 guilders of tips every day.

Not so long ago there was a thread about trust issues with Thai women.

Jokingly I kicked in a post suggesting to employ the services of a private detective and have the lady interrogated by a trained psychologist before asking her on the first date. I thought it was quite obvious that I had posted in jest, so it came as a big surprise that two posters had taken what I had written completely seriously.

One of them even was , and still is, one of my favourite posters. I felt inclined to reply something like "don't tell me you have lost your sense of humour in the land of smiles", but I just let it go. Hope he will be reading this though, and remember the thread.