Arkady

It is one of a number of recent disappointments and irritations about Thailand. He wants to quit working but needs to continue for citizenship. Remittance tax is the reinterpretation of the Revenue Code by Revenue Department order P 161/2566 in September 2023 which means that foreign source income earned after 1 Jan 2024 have to be taxed, if remitted to Thailand, at regular personal income tax rates. That has caused a number of expat retirees to review whether they want to remain as That tax residents or will spend less than 180 days a year in the Kingdom and avoid that tax. I had another friend whose goal was to get PR and stay in Thailand. Finally he got his PR application together with the help of a law firm but found after a few months dound that they had screwed it up and he was rejected. He could have reapplied the following year but he was so upset that he left Thailand and got a job somewhere else. Some people can be affected like that feeling a strong sense of rejection. However, many others of us have families here and can't easily up sticks and have to persevere. In my case I had real curved balls thrown at me while applying for both PR and citizenship but kept fighting and managed against all odds o get the applications back on track without having to reapply. I was told I was unqualified for PR and my citizenship file was knocked back to SB from the MOI. I think of it like a combination of an obstacle course and a war of attrition where you mustn't fall into despair during long waits with no news.

That really sucks. They were disabled for Thai citizens for a few years years too during and after COVID. I haven't travelled much recently but assumed they were back up and running for all. I remember that they made a big thing pre-COVID of allowing non-residents of Thailand, who were frequent travellers to Thailand to register for the gates and there was some reciprocation. I think foreign WP holders were also allowed to register at that point. But it seems they have totally ditched the expansion of the system beyond Thai citizens. There was a costly new system installed that was alleged by Big Joke to be plagued with corruption and years late. All for nought, it would seem.

Things may have changed but what I recall from being a PR was that the tabian baan was not required to get the endorsements in the residence book and passport at CW, except when the residence book was filled up with exit and entry stamps and I had to get a new one. This might never happen, if you only use e-gates at the airport. I am pretty sure the tabian baan was needed for renewal of the alien book at the police station, as they want verification that you reside in their precinct. It is a legal requirement under the Civil Registration Act that you should have a tabian baan, as a Thai resident. If your landlord removes you from his tabian baan and you don't transfer to another one, would that be notified to Immigration? Given the lack of coordination between govt depts, that seems extremely unlikely. However, not having a tabian baan as PR is very unwise and could easily cause you problems. In the situation you can't get a landlord to put you on the tabian baan, I would advise trying to get on the tabian baan of a Thai friend.

Let's not get too exercised about the provision to file tax returns, if you don't have any taxable income. PWC is correct that it is in the law but, as Dogmatix has explained, it doesn't seem to be enforced for good reasons. There are many other important aspects that are worth posting about.

It's good that interviews are getting under way now under the current government. I have a couple of friends waiting for interviews who are getting very pessimistic about the outlook. One of them is even considering leaving Thailand due to despondency over his application, the remittance tax and some other issues he doesn't like this government for.

Things speeded up after the 2014 coup and 3 years became the new normal for a brief few years. Things had already started slowing down a bit at the end of the coup government period and slowed down more under the Prayut government, despite no change in the minister. With Anutin as minister we are probably looking at 5+ years now to be realistic. Before the 2014 coup 5 years years was considered good with many running at the 7-8 year mark and some 10-11. Before the first Thaksin regime it was 1-3 years. Now Thaksin is back again.

Congrats to all in the latest batch. I had to wait two months for the certificate but your mileage may indeed vary. Bear in mind that many district offices now ask you to make an appointment to get your first ID card which can be a bummer, if you dash over there expecting to come out with an ID card like I did. I note that Anutin signed the authorisation to publish in the RG on 5 April and it was published two weeks later which included Songkran. That is very fast as there can often be a gap of six months or more between the publication date and the signature on the bottom. Somewhat less encouraging though is that this batch must have been approved by Anuphong, whereas Anutin merely approved publication in the RG of applicants already approved by the previous minister and probably by HMK before he actually started as interior minister. Of course he has no choice but to publish applicants already approved by HMK in the RG. So unfortunately it doesn't prove that Anutin is actually getting anything to do with citizenship done off his own bat and this batch might have been sitting in his in tray since his first day in the ministry. Many are Thai names who are probably hill tribes or other minorities or displaced Thais. I have never seen them mixed in with naturalisations of non-stateless applicants before. They have always had their own batches. They apply to district offices for initial processing but still have to go through the same section at the ministry for the final processing. I am not sure, if there is any significance to this new type of mixed batching. Probably not.

Glad to see these were all voluntary renunciations.

They have told the media they will prevent shops selling fried flower but there is nothing about that in the draft bill. I searched the word flower in Thai and nothing. No questions about that from shop owners and growers in the public hearing at the ministry either. Perhaps it is something that will come later in ministerial regulations they don't need to get through parliament.

It seems that being a Thai citizen makes you more likely to get on the radar of Thai call centre gangs operating from Cambodia or other locations. I was targeted by one a few days ago. It was the fake police scam claiming to be investigating money laundering and drug smuggling. They had my full name and ID card number in addition to my mobile number and claimed I had made a transaction with a named Thai person on a specific date in October and asked me to jot down a case number. I hung up at that point, having decided it was a scam, as the guy kept ignoring my insistence that he give me his name, rank and department, so I could check the fixed line number and call him back. They kept on calling for a few hours and more sporadically over the next couple of days using 06 mobile numbers which I didn't answer and immediately blocked them. I did pick up one more time when they used a different prefix and it was a different voice but obviously the same gang. I didn't speak and immediately blocked the number. My personal data could have come from an employee selling lists of personal data from any number of sources, including banks, credit card companies or any government office that has personal data plus phone number. Be warned. They make themselves sound quite scary and the background noise of the call centre could easily pass for a cop shop.

Yes. A PR's 13 digit ID number, which remains the same, if he upgrades to citizenship, should be used as his TIN. However, in cases where they or their company continue to use their old foreigner TIN, it doesn't seem to cause a problem. As a PR I filed for tax under my 13 digit number for years. Then I moved to a company that ignored me when I told them to use my TIN. They applied for a new foreigner TIN for me and insisted on using that the 3 years I worked there. I filed my tax return under my 13 digit number as usual submitting the documentation from the company with the foreigner number. The RD had no problem with this.

This has been posted before but probably not everyone has seen it. There was a detailed proposal under the first Thaksin government to merge the MOI departments that handle citizenship and PR together with the two SB citizenship departments (one for naturalisation and one for wives of Thai citizens) and the PR desk at CW that handles applications. As you would expect, it was resisted by the police tooth and nail and one of the arguments apparently fielded was that police couldn't bear to give up their police ranks (and parachute wings and medal ribbons too I guess) and become ordinary civil servants. So it got shot down or whoever was pushing it ran our of time in office. As you know, the the 1967 ministerial regulations pursuant to the 1965 Nationality Act were revised last year, following a cabinet resolution in January 2022, and included a plan to kick SB out of the process completely and take it all in house at the MOI. For reasons that have not been disclosed the new ministerial regulations were not issued before the Prayut government that commissioned them left office - possibly due to the impracticality of setting MOI facilities for application in each province, as called for in the draft regulations. It is a rough guess that, if the current minister and team ever get around to looking at this issue, they will probably want to go ahead and put the entire citizenship process under the MOI to have total control over it. The problem of provincial applications can be easily solved by having an office in Bangkok or Lamlukka handle applications nationwide in the same way as CW handles nationwide applications for PR. There is huge inefficiency in the current system, e.g. why does SB need two citizenship departments when both of them are under worked? Also there is the problem of lack of communication between SB and the MOI which looks down on the police and often leaves them guessing. Personally I hope for future applicants that the current government doesn't get around to looking at the citizenship issue and doesn't make any changes to the process. Intuition tells me that any changes would be for worse. Nearly in 2008 that allowed males with Thai wives to apply without PR. However, that was forced on an extremely reluctant MOI establishment by lawmakers intent on eliminating gender discrimination in the law (they succeeded only partially.) My advice to anyone already qualified is not to procrastinate, as whatever happens to the regulations and SB's involvement, it is only likely to get harder.

Sounds like a mistake. Unless something has changed since I last did it before becoming a citizen, you should have the multi in your passport. I just double checked my old passport. You better go back to CW and get it corrected.

You need 3 full tax years (1 Jan to 31 Dec) to qualify for both citizenship (with a Thai spouse) and PR, assuming you make the other qualifications. PR has a specific application time which is announced annually and usually runs till the year end but I think you can apply at the end of your third year and submit tax return in the New Year. Citizenship is open for application any time. So you can apply after submitting your tax return for the 3rd year. So, if you keep working continuously you will make the the 3 year qualification end 2024. For more info on PR see the AN Camerata PR thread.

One day the red book and the blue/white books will be replaced by smart card. This will upset people whose job it is to issue these pointless documents. When will this happen? Could be next year or 20 years hence. Is Anutin the man to shake things up? Probably not, or if he does it might not be to the advantage of PR holders, given his remarks about foreigners during COVID.