ronnie50

In many years of living here, I have never seen the police chase a speeding motorist - or chase any motorist for that matter. When you do see something on the news, it's a chase to catch a killer or a thief. Regarding number of deaths in Bangkok Mahanakon, I was surprised by how busy the streets and supermarket parking lots were over the new year period. My local Big C would be almost empty of cars during 31Ded - 1 Jan. Not this year. The parking lot was 3/4 full (Bangkok plates). My guess is fewer people went up country this year. Economy maybe..

Back to the issue of 'gifting'. The annual amount one can 'gift' their spouse is quite big. I thought, perhaps mistakenly, that would be tax deductable for the sender. (e.g. if I give my Thai wife 40k THB a month for her own individual spending, then that annual 480k THB is a gift and not assessible for tax), is that correct? While I see gifting explained in some of the accounting firms' documents, I don't see anything about it in the UOB Thailand tax calculator, just the standard deductable amount for being married.

Yes I do understand these points. What I'm trying to say is assuming I had a USD 500k savings account slowly accumulating over 30 years (I don't), and I send USD 50k to Thailand in any tax year from that account, how do I judge if I'm sending freshly minted 50k, or 50k that I earned 10 years ago, was already taxed and was sitting in that account? This is largely rhetorical, as I don't think there is any clarity on this. Sure, I could show the bank statements if challenged. That doesn't answer if the money is new or old though... does it?

Thanks, that's what I thought. The whole thing is still nonsense because there's not really any real way to prove or disprove when the money was earned, is that right?

So what does that mean for remittances from money saved before that in a bank account arboad?

Without seeing the actual correct transcript of the TRD DG it's hard to judge. But if the OP interpretation is correct, two things stick out. 1) he only mentioned 'remittances' - and stopped using the words 'global income'; 2) it is still just the reported mumblings of a senior civil servant and not a Government Minister. I'm not even sure if a 'directive' is legally sufficient to make non-immigrant residents pay income tax - that might need an actual legal amendment and published in the Royal Gazette. And it still isn't clear if remittances from long-held foreign bank accounts are taxable at all - anywhere - presumably if they are after-tax savings from many years gone by.

'First six days' - is it ten days in total that they count (27 Dec - 5 Jan)? Last year the figure was more than 500.. only counting those dead at the scene (not those who succumb later in hospitals).

Well, it's big for sure. But then again, at least in Thailand, they hold their political leaders to account and make them declare, publicly, their personal assets. Some don't. Remember the watches, lent from a dead friend? What comes of any of it (taxes, etc.), if anything is another matter. But think about this - the leader of the most powerful, wealthiest nation on earth doesn't have to release any of that information, because he has (snif) 'Liberty, Freedom and Justice' on his side.

Yes, I think that's what is actually required. But it's such a redundant exercise. I mean if one has a one-year Retirement or marriage extension and a one year lease (or longer) with a Thai landlord, and the dates of both beginning and ending of the lease are indicated on the TM30, it shouldn't matter how many times we aren't home. What if I went to Chiang Mai or Issan for a few nights. Supposedly, since I'm not in the rented accommodation, that should be documented too.. Weird system. China-like.

That's good. Were you travelling a lot at that time and were they updating your TM30 at Immigration each time you went out and back in to Thailand? Or just once a year?

If you send via post, do you do the recorded post/tracking? I guess that would be some kind of proof they received it and when..

Right. For those who own their own place, they can easily update the TM30 each time they go out and back (foreign owners of property have TM30s as well, right?). For renters, it's a hassle for the landlords to keep updating the TM30. Seems if you're renting, and your address doesn't change, it shouldn't matter to immigration how many times you come and go - hopefully. Just same TM30.. but I say that with hesitation.

When that occurs, and you are asked to report in person, does the IO expect you to also bring a fresh copy of the TM30 indicating your latest arrival date? That would be a real problem for many landlordds (and anyone who travels frequently in and out), or just the TM47?

I've only read part way throught this thread, so sorry if gets addressed in pages beyond. I guess if you are in control of your TM30 (you own a condo) that's easy enough for you to update. But my landlord doesn't want to update my TM30 each time I leave and return. Instead the landlord has included the 'optional' date of check-out (using a date when the lease expires). It only gets updated when the lease is renewed. I've never been asked for a TM30 upon arrival at airport. Should I have it to hand always when returning, and is it a problem that the landlord doesn't update each time I leave and come back?

My own sense - DTAs aside - is that this will 'primarily' boil down to each country's definition of a 'tax resident'. For example, if you are a UK citizen, but not resident there, the HMRC will not tax your non-UK foreign income (except government pensions at source). The UK seems pretty straightforward on that (this assumes one has no other investments in the UK like rental properties, etc.). Some other countries are a bit more complicated in 'determening' one's residency status. Canada has a non-res compliance form twice as long as your arm, and looks into every corner of a normally non-resident's life to see if it can claw something back - it has terms like 'Deemed Resident' and 'Factual Resident' largely based on any property you might still have there - even a storage locker - and even what relatives you have there, and your relationship with them. Even having a bank account or credit card there - but nothing else - could be a 'determing factor' (though not likely a major one). So the noose is tightening worldwide. I'm sure there are other countries making it harder and harder to claim non-residency for tax purposes.

A day or two ago, the Bangkok Post reported that new and used car sales would decline by 10% in the new year. Not luxury brands, but autos in general - same reason as above. BTW, in my area of central Bangkok, traffic was very busy during the entire New Year holiday (with Bangkok registration plates). Traditionally, or typically, at this stime of year the streets and supermarket parking lots are almost empty. Not this year. Both my local Villa and Big C supermarket parking lots were full and the main roads busy.

I think this is one of the main points, isn't it? For single guys, retired or receiving considerable earning on investments, pensions or whatever, it's a much simpler case. They can go wherever and whenever they want, provided they have the funds. But for those of us married and supporting a family here, the math doesn't work out (e.g. moving your whole family elsewhere for 6 months). Also many of us, like you, would not want the alternative of leaving them behind for 6 months every year - nor could most even afford to do that.

As someone already pointed out and something I mentioned, way back when, the plane isn't really skidding on its belly. It's clear that most of the plane is above the runway. The forward motion, and resistance to it, is from the massive engines skidding along the runway. Only the back of the plane near the tail is skidding along. So not enough of the plane (belly) was actually touching the runway to help slow it down. Anyway, just one more observation. Boeing changed the engine design on its newer 737 versions at least 10+ years ago, making them bigger, but more fuel efficient. I wonder how many previous examples of a belly landing with a 737-800 are similar and what were the outcomes.

Why are they still saying it 'veered' off the runway? It didn't veer in any direction. It ran out of runway, continued straight (at speed) across the grass for another 200 metres before colliding with a solid concrete structure in front of the airport's locator transmission assembly. Not a fence. Are these just poor translations from Korean reports, or deliberate misinformation?

The perimiter wall is just built from breezeblocks - not solid. The plane hit a solid concrete wall between the end of the runway and the (relatevely) flimsy perimeter wall. If it hit only the latter, the plane would gone right through it.

You can bet there are several people that work in the management of that airport (or who did when the ILS concrete wall was approved) that are planning a quick getaway before the police show up at their doors. Probably sub-contractor who recommended building the 'protective' ILS wall. This is east Asia, and there is a common approach by authorities in seeking out and quickly arresting anyone involved to show they are on top of the investigation.

No, not that wall. Immediately above in photo the small 30 metre wide solid concrete wall around 200 metres end of runway. That wall.Watch the video of the pilot - very good and explains about both walls.

There is a lot of good info and intelligent questions on this thread. There are people who know what they are talking about from industry experience and those that just speculate. So what. It's a web board. The video of the 737 800 pilot explaining many things is very worthwhile watching. And he also can't understand why they built a concrete wall at the end of the runway. He explains that too. End of the day, there could be many factors at play, but clearly the concrete wall is what ended the lives of nearly 200 people.

In the phone video above (with the apparent bird ingestion), doesn't it look like the plane is climbing (I admit it's a bit hard to tell)? One of the latest witness reports said the plane had already made one attempt at landing and aborted. Maybe it was during a go around that the bird strike happened?

Thing is with all these newer 737s, Boeing changed the engines - bigger and supposed to be more fuel efficient - but their size (and proximity to the runway/tarmac). MCAS (was to prevent unwanted pitch). When you see this video today, the engines are so big they dominate the belly landing, and make the nose/cockpit point up and the tail dragging behind. Not sure if that made a difference to the outcome (e.g. could the pilots see anything when they landed, or just sky).