Dogmatix

Simply nauseating that this convicted felon who even admitted his crimes and promised to repent to qualify for a Royal pardon is now openly running the country after his party lost the election while still on probation and on bail for his Lese Majeste offence. This all after spending his hugely reduced prison sentence in a luxury hospital suite (or at home) pretending to be ill, while other prisoners were enduring inhumane conditions and dying in the slammer. Just goes to prove that everything is for sale in Thailand - justice, election results - you name it. It's hardly surprising that the economy is in the toilet with the only plan to revive it is a ruinous cash hand out scam that will try to borrow huge amounts in the local bond market and crowd out the private sector's access to funding and sending his tame cheshire cat around the world selling land bridges and other ludicrous projects that no one is interested in.

How do you know all this, if you had your foreskin amputated at birth?

So he had a WP as manager of his company but is charged with working at a reserved occupation under the 1979 Royal Decree which doesn't stipulate any penalties. There must be thousands of Burmese and others committing the same offence in hotels, restaurants and shops in the South and many more working in restricted occupations who don't have WPs at all. Working in a retail business is a restricted occupation which means it is illegal to work in a shop or as a waiter in a restaurant. Last times I went to Samui and Phuket, it was hard to find anyone who could speak fluent working in shops and restaurants. Those with WPs must have a fake job description in their WPs. This is also true of foreign lawyers and accountants in Thailand who get WPs as consultants, trainers, adminstrators etc but illegally practice law and accountancy. Ironic for the lawyers who are breaking the law every minute of the day.

I got calls from scammers pretending to be police with a cock and bull story I had transferred money to someone who was implicated in money laundering and drug dealing. He had my full name, address,I D number and phone number. They set up background noise to sound like a police station which sounds quite realistic. I asked the guy to give me his name and rank and the name and location of his police unit, saying I would look up the phone number on the internet and call him back on the fixed line. He was obviously unhappy at that idea and just kept repeating the name of the unit he claimed to be form but didn't give his name or rank. So I hung up. That was about 7 months ago. At first they called several times a day after that but I never answered but blocked all the numbers which were easy to recognise because they will all 06 TRUE numbers, usually with the numbers in series or very close to each other. The numbers are all blocked from receiving calls. The calls still come in a couple of times a week. So they are very persistent. Must have a supervisor cracking the whip over them, probably somewhere just over the border in Cambodia. There is obviously a lot of complicity with these criminals. They seem to be able to buy pre-paid numbers in bulk that originate from the mainstream telcos , despite strict regulations requiring ID cards to buy a mobile number. They must be buying lengthy lists of personal data from government departments, banks and the like.

Thaksin is a role model for what you should do, if you face charges you think are unfair and don't believe you will get a fair trial.

I was stung on the thigh in the sea by something I couldn't see in Hua Hin one June. I was in waist deep water and it felt like a powerful electric shock which made my leg buckle and I collapsed in the sea. It left a nasty red wield about 5 inches across. A doctor gave me some kind of cream to put on it and said the pain and the swelling would be gone in 24 hours but it throbbed painfully for 2-3 days. After that it turned septic and suppurated pus intermittently for 3 months and has left a permanent scar. I have heard of people get similar stings on the face in Hua Hin, resulting unsightly scarring. One guy told me his daughter got one on her stomach and the scar was so bad she never wore a bikini after that. But better keep quiet about this in case it affects the tourist dollars.

For self employed people the RD offers two options. Either you accept a standard deduction for expenses, depending on the type of business, e.g. driving a taxi depending on its age might be 70% or you do submit audited accounts and use your actual costs. This is practical for most who wouldn't be able to cope with getting audited accounts done. Some business, like renting out property might not do well with a standard deduction as it doesn't allow you to deduct periodic, large maintenance or renovation costs which can be amortized, if audited accounts are submitted. When businesses get over a certain size, the tax bill can be reduced by incorporating as tax rates are lower for companies.

It is not her idea. It was announced that they planned to move to global tax when the interpretation was announced and she was still at the Comptroller General's office or had just arrived at the RD. It is something from within the RD triggered by their accession to CRS which provides the means, the silly OECD aspirations and above all by pressure from Tony on the RD to collect every last baht in tax it can to fund his digital wallet scam. One thing is certain. The RD's concept of implementation with no clarifications or supporting regulations and intending to tax everything, regardless of whether it has been subject to tax already or will be subject to tax in the following overseas tax year will drive away as many expats/ prevent them from coming as the tax itself. I think there can be little doubt that incremental tax collected net of tax and foreign inflows lost will be negative. Apart from runnning counter to the intend to promote more long term tourism, it also runs counter to Srettha's plans to promote more foreign investment in property with 99 year leases and 75% condo ownership. Even under the current remittance tax regime, many plans to buy property in Thailand have been cancelled by expats, including one of my close friends who after 30 yeasr or so as an expat is now also planning to live elsewhere for more than 180 days a year.

I found the post below on the UK HMRC's community website forum. It is a response to an enquiry by an HMRC staffer. Of note is the last underlined sentence where HMRC says that in all its DTAs income and gains arising from property arising from property in the UK are taxable in the UK. This is not actually what it says in the Thai DTA with the UK which says income from immoveable property "may" be taxed in the contracting party where the property is situated. However, it is logical for the UK to receive tax on rental and gains from UK property and clearly HMRC's interpretation of "may" in this case is actually "shall". The Thai RD has said clearly that it also plans to exercise its right under the DTA to tax Thai tax residents on income from UK. I know from my own experience that the UK tends to recognise the sole right of the state where income arises to tax that income, regardless of whether the DTA says "may" or "shall" which is a logical and practical approach. Part of the inheritance I received from my father was a house he owned in Spain. Despite him being UK domiciled and HMRC having the right to tax his estate's assets in Spain at a higher rate, our tax adviser told us that HMRC leaves Spanish assets alone, as long Spanish tax is paid, even if it is less. Thailand's grasping approach of wanting to tax the living daylights out of all foreign income, regardless of whether it is taxed in the country it arises or not is going to lead to serious problems which will probably drive many residents away. The UK is clearly not going to give up its right to tax income arising in the UK and will probably expect to come to a gentlemanly understanding with Thailand that it will not exercise its own right to tax income arising from from the UK. But, if not, that will just too bad for taxpayers caught in both tax nets. For UK landlords in Thailand this will be a right PITA. They may be able to claim a UK tax credit for 1 Jan to 5 April when they file their Thai taxes but will not be able to for 6 April to 31 December, meaning that they will have to pay Thai tax in full for that portion of the year and claim a UK tax credit for it. In addition they are required to file a PND 94 half year tax return in September and a full year PND 91 in March for rental income which is taxed on an entirely different basis to rental income the UK. In addition, capital gains are taxed more aggressively in Thailand than in the UK, although few Thais ever have to pay CGT because listed stocks and domestic property are exempt from it. If the RD is unwilling to even consider exempting overseas sourced pensions that are already subject to tax in the country of origin for the sake of collecting a pittance in incremental tax from foreign pensioners, they will obviously not consider doing the same for any other time of income. BTW British pensioners will also have a similar problem to that described above in that, even though UK tax may have been withheld, they will not be able to claim tax credits from tax paid from 6 April to 31 December in their Thai tax returns because they won't have filed their UK tax returns until after the deadline for Thai tax returns. "Posted 10 months ago by HMRC Admin 20 Hi Raymond_33, If you are not resident in the UK, but have UK savings and investments (such as interest or alternative finance receipts from banks or building societies, unit trusts, National Savings and Investments, or dividends from UK companies), the income is taxable in the UK. If you are not resident in the UK, then you are not taxable in the UK, on your non UK income or gains. If there is a double taxation agreement between your country of residence and the UK, then you may find that salaries, wages and other remunerations, as well as pensions including state pension arising in the UK, are not taxable in the UK, but are taxable in your country of residence. In all double taxation agreements the UK has with other countries, income and gains arising from property in the UK, are taxable in the UK. A tax return must be completed every year."

Srettha has achieved nothing overseas or in Thailand. A complete waste of space unelected by Thai people.

Quite right. Grinning cheshire cat PM who lost the election clocks up air miles circling the world in search of the quick wins his boss tells him are out there for the taking - land bridge, huge investments by Microsoft and Tesla etc etc - but comes home empty handed each time. You notice that no one is talking bout the land bridge any more. What a waster.

He go his religious cult up and running pretty fast in the 108 days he has been in the LOS.

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.