Dogmatix

This demand of Sretha’s seems aims at Anutin as Thaksin wants to recriminalize cannabis and this needs to keep Anutin out of the health ministry. Anutin has been silent about cannabis in the latest horse trading.

MFP couldn’t do that, as they always try to consult their supporters on important policy matters - their straw poll on supporting Srettha after PT stabbed then in the back was 95% against. But what would be funny would be if small parties could get together with MFP and nominate Srettha, Ung Ing, the 3rd PT candidate, Prawit and Prayut and let them all slug it out. Without serious discipline they could all fail and end up ineligible for renomination, if the Constitutional Court throws out the Pita renomination petition.

In a country where an old couple can get 33 years for picking wild mushrooms and a 16 year old gets one year and a day for one speed tablet, I don't think they should have let this go on his merry way after attempting to assault an officer with a weapon that could have killed him or cause brain injuries. A couple of weeks in the cells awaiting trial, then a fine and deportation and blacklisting for life would have been appropriate without being too harsh a punishment for the crime. What would they have done to a Burmese migrant worker who behaved like that out of sight somewhere? I think he would have been seriously injured, then dumped in a cell and given a prison sentence followed by blacklisting.

Golly gosh! General Watchman must on tenterhooks waiting to see, if Thaksin will invite his party into the coalition, even though everyone except him knows it's a done deal.

I was not impressed by PT's performance on economic management, although the party's PR machine promotes it relentlessly. In the first Thaksin government he had Somkid as "economic tsar" and he achieved nothing except spouting hot air in his heavy Chinese accent. He did the same for the junta government. The Yingluck government's main economic policy with the hugely corrupt rice pledging and they put in Kitirat as finance minister, in which role he achieved nothing nothing apart from the suicide of many farmers who were cheated by the government and not paid for their pledged rice, which meant their families had nothing to eat.

They probably put the boot in and got their revenge, once they had got out of sight.

It wasn't B42,000 worth of shares. It was 42,000 shares that are worthless because the company is delisted and has no operations. It is a subsidiary of AIS that they have to keep going because it is in an interminable lawsuit with the government for terminating its TV broadcasting licence abruptly due to its association with Thaksin. That was also the reason for the clause in the constitution prohibiting ownership of media shares - i.e. Thaksin acquired the TV station that was intended to be an independent station and used it to gain an unfair advantage in the 2005 election. Thaksin is at the root of most problems in Thai politics,

No problem. Just redact the reports to show Witness A and Witness B.

Didn't the Dallas Police Dept say that just before JFK drove past the grassy knoll?

They did dissolve Future Forward and Pravit's PPRP poached a number of their MPs but it regenerated itself and came back stronger.

A former colleague of mine used an accounting firm that had been warmly recommended for its PR service by others. They made some stupid mistake that got him rejected and he was so peed off that he left Thailand.

I remember in the late 80s in Hong Kong two British expat police inspectors found that both were having relationships with the same Thai hooker. There was a heated argument that culminated in a Texas shoot out with both drawing their .38 Smith & Wesson service revolvers simultaneously and shooting each other dead in a government expat apartment. Luckily the Thai woman was not left with nothing as she was also having an affair with a third expat police inspector and was on a trip to Thailand with him at the time of the deaths of her other two farang lovers. No doubt she also had a Thai husband as well.

Good idea. They could also use the chain method they used on bikers who used to race in Bkk in the wee hours on Rama 3. The cops just yank up a chain across the road and the bikers, who ignore the police commands all race into it and collapse in a sprawling mass of bikers, bikes and girlfriends. I remember one of the bike racers on in Bkk did a tour of honour after winning a race and shut past a barrier to zoom up a flyover still under construction. He and his girlfriend went hurtling through the air and were killed stone dead on impact. It was never ascertained whether he realised teh flyover was unfinished or not.

Not let PT fail. Let them be successful in what Thaksin has been busy negotiating with Pravit for the last two years. MFP will lose support from its own voters if it supports these shysters and votes for the expert tax avoidance for rich planner.

Why should MFP vote for Srettha after being booted into the opposition? Srettha’s ethical issues over tax are a good enough reason to ditch him, apart from anything else. Then we can revisit Ung Ing’s alleged cheating in the exam to get into Chula - not the sharpest tool in the shed that one.

Wissanu is pointing out a very practical consideration. Thaksin needs to return on a week day because the banks need to be open to handle large cash withdrawals and deposits to ensure that Thaksin gets the best justice money can buy.

Things fluctuate in the PR process as different section heads come and go at CW and DOPA, which ultimately controls the process, and they are rotated frequently, even though the senior sergeant majors at the CW desks stay for ever, as none of them want to leave such a cushy job. You are unlikely to ever meet a commissioned officer on the PR desks at CW, although some must get promoted to Sub-Lt or Lt under the scheme that allows NCOs to apply for commissioned rank after 20 years on the force. However, there are officers behind the scenes you never see, probably because they are busy working on their handicaps or at second jobs, and those are the ones that make decisions and sign stuff. The point of this is that the front desk officers don't really have much authority and certainly don't have the discretion to refuse an application out of hand that has nothing wrong with it. It would be risky for them to do this, in case someone complained or sued them in the Administrative Court. Something like that would probably have to have a more senior officer complicit in it to cover up for them, if something went wrong. You might get rogue officers trying to squeeze big income of it from time to time but there have been very few reports of this type. There was a complaint of this type in the citizenship process at Special Branch a few years back and it resulted in an extremely stressful investigation of the accused officer that lasted several weeks and probably took some years off her life. In the end there was no substantive evidence as it just turned out to be from a farang's office messenger who was sent to pick up documents and information about how to apply for citizenship. He claimed to have been told by a schoolgirl who was working in the office as an intern in the office that all applicants had to pay bribes of at least a certain amount. The farang had a very aggressive hi-so Thai wife who heard about this and complained through her connections. In the end it was impossible to identify the schoolgirl and the case was dropped. The farang never even tried to apply, so he had no evidence to give. But this shows how risky its is for police to ask directly for bribes in PR and citizenship sections, although I would not say it never happens.

He has been a member of many parties. Has now principles other than making money. was Interior Minister during the War on Drugs. Said nothing about the Tak Bai massacre where his fellow Muslims were murdered. A truly despicable human being.

You wrong in saying no general has ever been punished for staging a military coup. General Chalard was summarily executed without trial for staging a coup because he pulled out his pistol and murdered a senior officer in the King's Guard for refusing to join him. The coup failed and the prime minister signed an order to have him executed a month later.

Of course they don't want to kick out the biker gangs that are involved in serious crime like selling property with fraudulent title deeds in Samui, extorting farang businesses, drugs and even murder but those ones cultivate good relationships with local cops and pay them off.

Yes, that was introduced in about 2002 which meant those continuously on retirement extensions for about 6 years were grandfathered in at the old lump sum of 200k. You have to keep on getting consecutive extensions to maintain it or you get bumped up to the 800k.

This is a very feeble rebuttal by Sansiri. The company was not accused of tax avoidance or evasion itself by Chuvit. He accused them of aiding and abetting tax avoidance and possibly evasion. The sellers couldn't have done this without Sansiri's cooperation in a highly convoluted process that also involved the better part of a billion baht in cash flying about which is clear sign of understatement of the sales price for tax purposes. This is all highly unethical and weak corporate governance. Even if everyone else does it, Srettha is the CEO who has been caught doing it and Sansiri has not attempted to deny the aiding and abetting because it can't.

Surachet is correct in saying that sellers aim to lessen tax payments but I am not sure that the method used is really legal as he implies. It would be a huge loophole, that any group of owners could use. Therefore no point in having the provision to tax groups of owners as a partnership. The other issue is that nearly half was paid in cash, according to Chuvit and the tax paid is extremely low, even though they were taxed as individuals. Chuvit's implication is that the cash payments were to allow the sellers to understate the price to evade, not avoid tax, in this case. Chuvit suggested the total tax payable by a partnership would have 521 million vs the 59 million actually paid. Of course understating sales prices is also common practice, even though Surachet didn't mention it. With sales price claimed by Chuvit to be 4 million a sq wah, the appraised price must have been much lower than that in 2019 making understatement easy to to. I recall it was big news when appraised value hit 1 million a sq wah in Silom in the latest 2023 re-appraisal and that was said to the highest in the country. So Sarasin Road in 2019 must have been a lot lower than that. In the original article, which came from another source not mentioned by Thaiger, Surachet mentioned the common practice of property developers buying land through companies owned by family members of executives and then selling on to their company at a risk free profit. This was in response to Chuvit's allegation that Sansiri used an agent or nominee to buy the land. If the land was bought by nominees and then sold on to Sansiri at a profit that would be a related party transaction that would have to be reported to the SEC but Sansiri has not reported any related party transactions since before the sale. I can vouch for the fact that this practice of taking a chunk out of the middle of land purchases is common for listed property developers and other listed companies that buy land. I have even heard CEOs boasting about making easy money this way. However, it is theft from the minority shareholders pure and simple. Even though all 3 of these practices are commonplace, they all amount to serious breaches of good governance and ethical behaviour. Aiding and abetting tax avoidance is unethical, while aiding and abetting tax evasion is criminal. So much for some guy whose only sin amounts to holding a tiny block of worthlessshares in a media company that has been defunct for nearly 20 years.

When you take into account that it is about 20 years since all the financial hurdles were revised for retirement and marriage extensions as well as for PR and citizenship applications, it is inevitable that these will all be bumped up in the not too distant future, even though it will, of course, do nothing to keep out criminals. The previous lump sum requirement for retirement extensions was 200k. So they are capable of bumping it up hugely when it hasn't been raised for a long time. But the good news is that people who had been on retirement extensions for a few years at the time were grandfathered in at the old price which still applies to them today, if they are still alive and kicking. I am pretty sure they will also grandfather people in at 800k, when they bump it up, to prevent a backlash and complaints of people having to leave the country.

Exactly right. The Immigration Act is from the 70s and is very out of date and doesn't even mention retirement or marriage extensions, which only came in in the 90s, but Immigration can change most of the important details by issuing police orders that get published in the Royal Gazette and have the force of law. Definitely they should check criminal records for any long term visas. US embassies and consulates also have a standing order to refer visa applications from anyone with a background in motorcycle gangs to the State Department which denies their visas, unless there are exceptionally good reasons to approve them. Visa applicants are obliged to give details of all social media accounts and can be denied for withholding any. Thailand would do well to issue a police order banning anyone with a background in motorcycle gangs too and get rid of all the foreign Bandidos and other motorcycle scum. If the US can do it, why not Thailand, rather than wringing hands and allowing local officials to continue pocketing bribes from these criminals.