Dogmatix

Unrealistic expectations on both sides, cultural differences, lack of common language and interests can lead to frustration and grind down the relationship in the best of circumstances. The worst is dishonesty where she maintains a relationship with a Thai man all along and drains your resources to pay him enough to keep him sweet while he's doing younger Thai chicks with your money. Sometimes it works out but be well aware of the pitfalls.

It will just increase inflation without making Thai manufacturers any more competitive. They don't even make this low end stuff anyway.

Will not stimulate GDP growth because too many imports or imported components will be bought which are negative contributions to GDP growth and the debt is toxic that will probably have a negative impact on credit ratings and borrowing costs. Basically people get a small bonus now and have to pay off the debt and miss out on other benefits in the future. A zero or negative sum game.

I bought a rechargeable fan on Shopee and it ceased to function a few days after the return period expired. Seller agreed to take return and make a refund anyway. I got the maid to return it and never the seller then stopped replying to my follow up and never refunded. Unfortunately the maid didn't realise she had to keep the postage receipt and threw it away. So nothing I could do but clearly a dishonest seller. Shopee and Lazada are far more pro-seller than Ebay which works to farang consumer protection standards.

Last few times they went down this route there was a big backlash from the Buddhist lobby and the government backtracked. Wonder where they are today or has Thailand gone secular all of a sudden.

That's right. The constitution just says that convicted felons sentenced to time in prison may not be ministers but doesn't specify where those convictions may take place which gave some wiggle room. In the end the judges in their great wisdom ruled that they were unable to say with any confidence that drug convictions in Australia adhered to the same high levels of soundness as in Thailand and that therefore they had to give the deputy minister the benefit of the doubt and deem the Australian conviction as null and void for the purposes of his qualifications for a cabinet role. Some bright sparks argued that because the offence for which the Ozzies convicted him was in fact smuggling heroin from Thailand to Australia and the Ozzie police nabbed him because they were tipped off by the Thai DEA, there must be enough evidence to try and convict him in Thailand which could surely be done without double jeopardy, if a Thai court had ruled his Ozzie conviction as null and void.

They are looking for Premchai to make a soup out of his appendage like he did to their relative for his perverted pleasure.

The link is about TISCO's international brokerage account service. I imagine it is good as the other leading Thai brokers. It is useful, if you have Thai baht onshore and want to invest in stocks of your choice in overseas stock markets. They cover a variety of overseas markets but bear in mind the new remittance tax and planned global tax for Thai residents. The comments about the unfair restructuring of THAI are not very very relevant in the context of an account that allows you to actively trade stocks overseas. I have not used this service with TISCO or any other Thai broker, as I have my own brokerage accounts overseas that allow me to trade in a variety of different markets. But I do have a domestic brokerage account with TISCO and have no complaints about that. If you do have Thai baht that you want to invest in offshore markets, you might consider some of the overseas funds offered by Thai fund management companies, since they allow you to Thai tax on capital gains. Aberdeen offers a few of its international funds in Thai wrappings. Krung Thai Asset management has some surprisingly good funds for a government bank. All of them have some but the overall selection available is rather limited, although worth looking at for the tax advantage for onshore money. The Thai market languishes in what looks like a terminal ex-growth condition due to years of hopeless economic management and lack of planning and foresight by endless streams of incompetent and corrupt politicians and officials, culminating today in the dead end economic policies of Srettha/Tony which comprise nothing much more than the ruinous digital wallet scam, endless ineffectual overseas roadshows and a lot of whinging about not enough zero dollar Chinese tour groups plus chasing away foreign capital inflows with new unthought through tax rules But it will go up again one day. So it is worth looking at high yield stocks paying 4%+ dividends. Thai stocks are capital gains tax free and hopefully that will again be relevant at some time in the future.

2. I suspect that the recent announcements were indeed approved by Anuphong and that Anutin merely approved publication in the RG which he cannot withhold, at least in the case of naturalisation (not wives of Thais) because HMK has countersigned for them already. 4. By end 2022 he MOI had produced the new draft ministerial regulation which included axing SB from the process, as it was required to do in the January 2022 cabinet resolution. But it was apparently shelved, as nothing more was ever heard of it after the announcement that he draft was ready. Obviously the police were not happy with the proposal and quite likely it was shelved to avoid having to fight with them. Anutin may indeed decide he is big enough to take on the police and revive the ministerial regulation which could be put into effect quickly, perhaps with some amendments, since it is already drafted. Apart from the opposition of the police it was impractical to set up application centres in every province, given that some provinces may not receive an application in 100 years. The obvious solution would be to let Bankok handle the surrounding and central provinces, assign a centre for each region outside Bangkok - Phuket for the South, Chiang Mai for the North, maybe Korat for the NE and Pattaya for the East. Or just make everyone come to Bangkok like they do for PR. But they would probably not be able to get their minds around a practical solution like that. It is just speculation that Anutin will revive the draft ministerial regulation but not beyond the bonds of possibility, as it fits in with his ideas of expanding DOPA's power at the expense of the cops in line with his raids on pubs using the DOPA SWAT team without any police present. Whatever thoughts Anutin has about the process, one can assume that, given his sentiment expressed on foreigners during COVID, streamlining, speeding up the process and making it more transparent, as Anuphong set out to do are unlikely to be his priorities. His father's track record as IM is also not a positive indicator. He signed very few applications and created a large backlog by the time he got his marching orders. 5. There have always been some unpleasant experiences getting that first ID card from district offices. In fact the OP of this thread complained that nearly 20 years ago the head of registrations at his DO made things so difficult that he moved to another district on a friend's tabien baan and got his ID card there before moving back a couple of weeks later with a big smile on his face. Whether this unpleasantness has now become universal or is ordered by DOPA I can't say. I suspect that the real nasties are rogue officers coming up with their ways to torment new Thais combined with a bit of pressure from things like the cases Big Joke highlighted of Chinese criminals with either genuine naturalisation or ID cards they were not entitled to issued by corrupt district officials. But suffice it to say that everything to do with citizenship and PR gets steadily harder. Even with some lighter touches under military rule the long term trend is down. For example PR took under a year in the late 90s and citizenship took, I think, 1-2 years. The arrival of the first Thaksin government was what caused a sudden deterioration and reduction in transparency in the processes, along with wholesale rejections and greatly extended waiting periods. Now Thaksin is back which combined with Anutin is a double negative. But hey things can always pick up and maybe there will be another military coup.

Lurking around churches were foreigners go to worship to make arrests. You can't stoop much lower than that. They should be ashamed of themselves.

Geriatric red shirt mob with zimmer frames and wheel chairs. They can no longer find young Thais support this greedy, corrupt family that has been a blight on Thailand for over 20 years. Just the die hard aging red shirts, who don't realise that things have moved on, remain loyal to this shower.

Get Dad to pay to have MFP dissolved and then take their seats in Bkk. Winning strategy.

If you google it in Thai, there is not much more than the jumbled up press releases. There was more of a Thai reaction to the remittance tax announcement in September. But there is still plenty of mention of the new visas the government is planning like the LTR digital nomads lite and overblown projections of sales of condos to foreigners without any mention that the government has already killed off these things with the remittance tax, let alone the announcement of global tax. It is amazing that they seem able to appreciate the obvious contradictions.

Everything in Thailand is now being decided by Money Bags Tony who has proved that his money can buy anything in Thailand, including political power after losing an election immediate release from prison despite an 8 year sentence confirmed by the supreme court etc etc. Let's hope he finally gets locked away for his insults to the Privy Council, which serves at the pleasure of HMK in the Korean newspaper interview. But he has already began the process of endless appeals for "fair treatment" like the Red Bull brat did before fleeing the country. When he became PM in 2000, Tony actually brought some ideas with him, such as universal healthcare to help offset his authoritarian rule and rampant corruption. Now all he can offer is the digital wallet, resulting in more taxes for Thais and foreigners but Thais still get the authoritarianism and rampant corruption. The sooner he vacates the political scene, or even shuffles off his mortal coil, the better life will be for everyone in Thailand.

Looks like a scene from Gaza. There are horrible incidents with these dangerous toys every year. High time they were banned along with the gun powder or whatever the propellant they use.

There’ll be a lot of elderly farang pensioners begging in Isaan villages, once Thailand had taxed the living b’Jesus out of them and their Thai wives have booted them out as having no more value left in them.

Tony should be entitled to the same treatment as the girl who was denied bail for LM and was left to die in prison without bail.

You can easily be tax resident of more than one country. Many UK expats are still UK tax residents because it is much harder to get out of the UK tax net than the Thai one and conversely much easier to get dragged back into the UK net, eg visit the UK for more than 90 days in a tax year. US expats are all US tax residents in addition to maybe being a tax resident of other countries.

I like the way there is no suggestion from Minister Varuwut, who is from a political family that allegedly made big money from corruption, that any of the beggars might actually be in desperate need, so his ministry should pick them up and do an evaluation whether they need help or punishment. One solution would be to tax them on the assumption they can make 100k a month. Given them a 30k allowance for expenses and tax them on a net 70k. That would at least raise tax revenues for the government. Get police to check their tax receipts or arrest them.

On my first trip to Thailand I was approached by an Irish beggar near Patpong.

A complete overhaul of the tax structure for foreign source investment income would be a good idea to bring it into line with tax on Thai investment invome, viz: Capital gains on listed stocks 0% tax or at least allow offset of losses as Thai companies can do. 10% flat rate on dividends which don’t impact your top rate of tax. 15% on interest without affecting your top rate of tax. A lightweight transactional tax on property sales without affecting your top rate of tax. Taxing foreigners at the top rate of income on these income sources is very unfair, given the easy tax regime on domestic investment income. Many foreigners will right feel discriminated against when they understand this and leave. Foreign rental income which many expats live on, could be a complete nightmare. Thailand allows only a flat deduction of 30% regardless of costs including renovations and repairs which can often wipe out a year’s rental or more. Tax years being out of synch could be a huge problem and to cap it all renting out property is considered a business in Thailand and subject to a PND 94 mid year tax return in September as well as the standard PND 90 year end tax return in March. I think many expat property owners will just throw in the towel and leave when they understand the implications and I can’t blame them. However, it is extremely unlikely they will even consider bringing tax rates on foreign investment income into line with Thai rates. We are dealing with a bureaucracy and politicians who like to go for quick wins without thinking anything through and xenophobia is institutionalized.

I agree there seemed no intention to tax globally on the US model. That would impact Thai citizens living overseas and would be very unpopular while collecting very little incremental tax vs the European style global tax for tax residents only

My guess is that you would get to donate GBP 350,000 of your 1 million prize to the Thai government. This is essentially income from a foreign government bond which is taxable. Whatever tax exemptions may apply to similar schemes in Thailand like the Government Savings Bank lottery (and I am not if that is exempt anyway but prizes on the National Lottery are taxed at only 0.5%) would not apply to a foreign scheme because it is not named in any regulation. It would just be classified as interest or income from other investments and taxed at 35%. it is worth noting that you can opt to be taxed at a flat rate of 15% on interest from Thai banks but this doesn’t apply to interest from foreign banks. There are several concessions on Thai dividends, interest, capital gains and property sales that won’t apply to the same foreign investments. So it will massively unfair to expats living off foreign investment income. I expect many will vote with their feet.

MFP's policies involved a big step up in welfare payments and they were planning a wealth tax to help pay for that. They had also proposed axing the exemption on capital gains on listed Thai stocks. I don't think they had proposed global tax or remittance tax but it would appear to be a fit with their policies.

AFAIK US green card holders are also taxed on world wide income, even if they reside abroad, as long as they maintain their green cards.