Dogmatix

You are right. The Revenue Department has been making noises about introducing global taxation since September 2023 when they introduced the bizarre reinterpretation that was obviously and unsurprisingly a total failure. It is not clear whether this latest plan is intended to be another stop gap before global taxation is introduced or not. The RD always says nonsensical things like whatever they are suggesting is required by OECD which Thailand aspires at some point in the distant future to become a member of. But this time, no mention of OECD because they are backtracking. I guess the RD will always push for global taxation and one day might get it, especially if PP is ever in power which could also result in a wealth tax to fund welfare. Such a major change ought to be done through parliament which they don't have the authority to do right now, although they could try to wing it with a ministerial decree, which can of course be challenged in parliament later and potentially rescinded but this rarely ever happens. I guess the current government won't want to touch this hot potato while they fighting for survival.

It would make life easier for wealthy and middle income Thais who invest abroad but I tend to think the most wealthy don't care because they can secret their offshore wealth in corporate and trust structures. If they need money in Thailand, they can structure it as a loan or something. Not a big enough incentive to them.

Meanwhile the government attempts to get Thais to take holidays in Thailand with subsidies (that don't work). But they say it is unfair if Vietnam tries to boost its own domestic tourism. Just like Thais, the vast majority of Vietnamese don't travel overseas anyway. Thai tourism authorities live in the past and rest on their laurels. They make no effort to be more competitive or reduce dual pricing or other tourism scams. Meanwhile Thai prices have become uncompetitive. If Burma ever gets its act together, it will wipe the floor on tourism. It has so much undeveloped coastline and islands. I went to Napoli Beach some years ago. Lovely coastline in Rachine State but only one semi decent hotel and, even there the swimming pool was green and smelly. Outside nothing but crap. People living in dire poverty. No restaurants or attractions. There was a big beach down the road with Burmese swimming fully clothed in car inner tubes and garbage all over the place. No amenities and the locals stared at foreigners and asked intrusive questions. There are thousands of beach resorts like that in Burma that will one day be transformed. In Thailand Phuket and Samui have been completely concreted over and are unrecognisable today. In shops and hotels you can hardly find anyone that can speak Thai, even the gardners and room maids are foreigners. Front desk are Filipinos. . Thais feel they are in a foreign country. So they may as well go abroad.

I am not victim blaming. The condo manager should be fired and punished. But it is easy enough to translate messages with Google translate. Why let him come up to get a charger at 1.00am? A sensible woman would have just not replied but maybe offered the charger at the front desk the next morning. He apparently disrobed and took a shower. She could have thrown his clothes off the balcony and left the building to call bf or cops, not go on the balcony. Also could have waited annd offered him the towel but twisted his gonads in a knot or sliced them with a knife. But basically hanging around after he took off his clothes and went in the bathroom was a big mistake. Lucky she wasn't raped and/or murdered.

Thailand may want Israel's AI target finding software that is used to identify anyone who might possibly be a contact with anyone from Hamas which includes the postmen, medical staff and the entire Hamas run civil administration of Gaza. Once a suitable target is identified entire neighborhoods or tent encampments can be blown up with American 20,000 lb bombs in order to get that one person who may have been related to a postman. This technology would go down a storm in the Deep South and would quickly bring the insurgency to a halt, once 90% of Muslim Malay villages there have been reduced to bomb craters.

It's extraordinary that a listed company with public shareholders can be used as a political tool and forced to commit to buying certain aircraft to help out the government. It has gone bust once due to government meddling, incompetence and corruption and will probably go bust again for the same reasons. That Lavaron Sangsnit, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Finance, the political functionary who, as director general of the Revenue Department, disastrously meddled with tax rules on foreign remittances in 2023 that now have to be fixed, is THAI Chairperson speaks volumes for the airline's independence and ability to compete in a cut throat global market place.

Thai people didn't you Ung Ing any more than they wanted the vacuous Chesire cat installed by your dad before you. They voted for Pita. Now they want you even less. Please resign and get out of the way without waiting for the court to do the job for you.

The Thais never understood why tourists flocked to Thailand and now they don't understand why they have stopped coming. One reason is that prices have gone up in the tourism sector hugely, compared to competitors like Vietnam that now have vastly improved tourism infrastructure. Another is all the stories of horrible rip offs, dual pricing, stabbings of tourists by taxi drivers. kidnappings etc that Thai authorities never really do anything to stamp out. Thailand has some unique attractions like prostitution but only a small and declining percentage come for that. Anyway Thai hookers and girly bars are now price gouging. After getting a bill fo 10,000 baht in a girly bar, not many people want to go back for a second shot. They are on the way to becoming like the girly bars in Wanchai that were usually empty because they were only there to rip off first time tourists and yankie sailors when the aircraft carriers dumped off 5,000 sex starved farm boys who hadn't had a drink in weeks and all the bars made a killing but handed over nothing in return.

This is not really the business of the director general of the Revenue Department to engage with the media about. Has anyone ever seen an announcement about changes in tax policy from the head of HMRC or the IRS? Never. It is the job of the finance minister to determine tax policy and government should enact amendments through parliament not through ministerial emergency orders, as they plan to do, or just let the director general issue orders that are not binding on the public like they did in 2023. But this government is far too incompetent and just delegates this very important policy to the bureaucrats who should be just implementing policy not formulating it. The result has been a total failure of the bizarre orders issued by the Revenue Department in 2023. Not only have they failed to generate any incremental tax but they have kept Thai money abroad and choked off inflows by expats, many of whom fled or decided never to move here. Now to save face, they are are going to issue an emergency order to amend the Revenue Code but the effect is probably to to allow any remittances tax free. If you sold your property this year and left the money on deposit in the UK at decent interest rates for another 10 years, the gains on your property become principle and the interest is your income. Last year's interest also becomes principle. So you can probably remit all of it tax free to Thailand whenever you like, unless there is very specific wording to exclude past income. That is possible but Thai amendments to laws usually just change a couple of words around without the copious detail you find in UK or US tax laws. Let's see. I think they would have done better to have done nothing but the problem is that the clown Srettha who was finance minister as well as PM didn't have a clue and let the bureaucrats dictate policy that no one thought through with disastrous results. Now the finance minister is a dusty old retired bureaucrat who also lets the bureaucrats do everything. Thaksin only cares that ministers are totally loyal to him. Competence or qualifications don't enter into it. His daughter was a prime example while she lasted.

Thai state schools are unable by design to teach English or critical thinking skills.

He managed to get the LM case deferred for a year to July 2025. AFAIK it is now proceeding or will soon. Originally it seemed to have been shelved when he came back and the military, who had originally filed the case, got flak for not following it up. Presumably it was ;part of his homecoming deal that the case should not be pursued but probably subject to certain conditions like not interfering in politics, as he promised. It was revived about a year ago, presumably either because he had reneged on something or because the establishment grew tired of him, having forgotten how obnoxious he was when he was away. Hopefully they will now seize the chance to get rid of him and his corruption and useless policies for ever.

Let's hope justice prevails and he is ordered to serve his sentence in prison like everyone else. Then top it up with another 15 years for lese majeste. Whether you agree that should be a criminal offence or not, it is one and he is definitely guilty for what he said in the Korean newspaper interview. If he wants to run away again, let him use the same escape route as Yingluck, through Cambodia. Drop him off at the border opposite a freshly laid mine field and count to 20. If he is still upright and visible after that shoot him while trying to escape. Thaksin has done enough damage to this country. The last couple of years with him running the country behind two pathetic nominee PMs has been a complete shambles with his disastrous policies that caused the economy to tank in addition to all the usual corruption. Enough is enough.

He should have a worse penalty for committing crimes of corruption while PM. In Singapore police who commit crimes get stiffer punishments than others which is as it should be.

No mention of the impact on Thais of Thaksin's disastrous economic policies - hand outs, half half travel, landbridges, casinos, war with Cambodia and now they cannot negotiate a trade deal with the US, as Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines have done. So thousands of jobs in the export sector will be lost due to their incompetence. It is high time this disgusting family was driven out of Thai politics.

Sounds like the gunman may have met the lawyer by chance which would imply it was not premeditated by that the gunman was in the habit of carrying a gun around with him, presumably without a carry permit, as Anutin made these impossible to get while interior minister but that doesn't stop Thais carrying guns.