Arkady

1 hour ago, onthemoon said:

Noted. Paying into Social Security of having the Gold Card has the same effect, free treatment at a specific hospital. Or is there a difference I should be aware of?

 

Right now, Gold Card plus pension sounds like the smarter option.

It problably is.  You don't need to live too long to make a profit from the pension relative to what you paid in, even though inflation is gathering pace and the government has no plans to adjust the pension for inflation. Just like the frozen UK state pension!  On the other hand some SS hospitals are quite good and others are <deleted>.  I believe Bangkok Christian Hospital in Silom, which is quite good, is on SS, whereas others I have been inside looked quite poor.  if SS gives you a hospital that is much better than the government alternative where you live, you might want to consider opting in.  Otherwise I wouldn't bother.  There is not much consistency between hospitals in the private or public systems.  Also some treatments may be available in one system but not the other.

Basically public health in Thailand is pretty <deleted> by Western standards but is a lot better than before the gold card and SS came along.  The most scandalous aspect is that the civil servants who design the policies have their own scheme that is much better than the other two and also takes care of their families.  Clearly the three systems should all be merged.  Civil servants could then see how the other half live and would have an incentive to improve things.

1 hour ago, Kwarium said:

i was thinking of those not in Social Security. More information:

https://www.scb.co.th/en/personal-banking/stories/how-to-choose-social-security-gold-card-and-health-insurance.html

It is a pretty feeble social security system that makes you choose between inadequate private hospital healthcare and a tiny pension. They should consider dropping the word security from the name.

34 minutes ago, RJaidee said:

It depends where you get married. Where I had to get married I had to put forward 2 people and they were interviewed for about 10 minutes by the Amphur Headman. They dont do that where they have lots of Western / Thai marriages though.

555. What an earth could they talk about for 10 minutes with witnesses to a marriage registration?  They are just there to witness the event. It is not up to the head of registrations to decide whether you can get married or not based on witness statements.

One type of witness interview that seems value added is the compulsory interview of buyers and sellers with the head of registrations in the Land Office.  But I note that it is sometimes possible to give the head a tip to avoid the interview. This can be done either to save time and trouble, or in order to make it easier to deceive a buyer or seller. I was once asked what I wanted the land for in Ubon province and I told her I wanted to graze cows there, using the Isaan word gnua for a cow creating raucous laughter. (In fact someone else grazed their cows there without permission.) The seller is often asked if he really wants to sell at the declared price which is often significantly understated to avoid tax. Of course they know exactly what is going on but they sometimes tell you sarcastically you have got a great deal. 

I think this can be considered on topic because the first thing you want to do after getting your ID card after visiting the Royal Palace for free is to buy land - just because you can.

5 hours ago, hotchilli said:

Some might suggest Lisa moved to Korea because her career only path in Buriram planting rice wasn't all it was cracked up to be.

Her other skills were going to waste.

Lisa is the step daughter of a well known Swiss chef in Thailand. She got a decent education in Bangkok.

On 11/8/2021 at 8:39 AM, onthemoon said:

Your experience is different from mine then. My witnesses were not asked a single question about my finances, but they were first asked how long they know me and how they know me to establish that they can say something about the following questions which centered around whether I am a reliable person and of good character. That's what they told me, I have no protocol of that interview.

Interesting. Goes to show that things can change depending on who's in charge.

6 hours ago, onthemoon said:

Interesting. In my case, the witnesses for my citizen application were character witnesses. I fully understand that the government wants to hear their statements, and they were asked questions accordingly.

I wouldn't know what the witnesses in for a marriage would witness. Every business contract in Thailand needs to witnesses and they just witness that the contract was signed by the two people, they don't need to know them or say anything about the signors' characters. So we might be talking about different things here.

I think witnesses for marriage don't have to know you but just witness your signatures.  For citizenship they are not really character witnesses. They just have to verify certain facts in your application, i.e. how long you have been in Thailand, your job, your salary, your bank balance as per the statement you submitted, your condo and its value, if you have one. Many of these facts they are not in a position to know which makes it a pointless exercise and explains why SB doesn't always ask you to bring them, depending on who is in charge in your year.  As mentioned, I still have copies of the 'interviews' and they were not asked about my character.  Of course, if they put the witnesses to the trouble of coming into the office, they might ask more questions that are beyond the basic requirements.

7 hours ago, RJaidee said:

Update

My wife just spoke to the person who handled my file

 

Letter 1 for British Embassy is the intention letter. I have no need to do  this again having submitted it already.

Letter 2, and this is directly from the person, we need to take a photo of us handing that over at the British Embassy and submit that as evidence.

 

The only way to to find out is to submit the evidence requested, find out why that is wrong, submit it again, and repeat until accepted.

 

Asking you to take a picture of embassy staff receiving the letter, when you have to check mobile phones and cameras at the gate, is the height of Thai bureaucratic asininity.  They should also get a picture of the embassy staff chucking the letter unopened into the bin.

4 hours ago, khongaeng said:

From what others have said, it sounds like it is not required for witnesses to visit SB.  When I visited SB during my paperwork collection phase, they. said that I needed 2 witnesses but that they could "arrange" them for me.  Avoiding the possible awkwardness if payment was required for these "arranged" witnesses, I opted to find my own 2 witnesses.  I assumed that they would have to come to the office, so I brought them with me when I finalized my application, but I suppose it may not be required.  They were interviewed for less than 5 minutes and then were allowed to leave. I suppose this is an indication that their presence was not even required.  

The witnesses need to fill in their personal details on a form and sign the fictitious witness statements but don't need to come to the office to do that.  It is interesting that SB offer to provide the witnesses for you now.  The MoI might be surprised that so many applicants have friends in the police.  When I got married the district office provided two witnesses for 150 baht each but they didn't have to know us.

24 minutes ago, GarryP said:

My witnesses didn't visit SB, nor were they interviewed by phone, but I applied just over 9 years ago. 

The wording of the interview transcript is pretty basic.  I think I still have it in my file because I had to get the witnesses to sign them, since they hadn't been interviewed. It's just like I have known Joe Bloggs in Thailand for XX years. I confirm he works at XXXXCo and earns a salary of XXX a month, has a condo worth XX million smackers, has a bank balance of zillions of baht.  Of course, if they come into the office, they will have to answer these silly questions like how much you have in your bank account.

22 minutes ago, onthemoon said:

It was smart to bring the witnesses on that day, because I didn't. They went the next day without me (I wasn't free) and it went smoothly.

So is SB insisting on interviewing the witnesses in most cases these days?  For some years they were happy to write up imaginary interviews to avoid bringing them into the office.

7 hours ago, onthemoon said:

I did not need any certificate of legal age and I guess that is because my hair was already greying at time of application. I believe this is only required if the applicant is young. For example if someone is 19 at time of application, does that mean he is an adult according to his or her country's laws and can really make any legal decisions? How about 17?

I doubt that they ever need enforce the legal age affirmation for male applicants because it is virtually impossible to meet all the requirements while not yet of legal age even if legal age is 21 where they come from.  Theoretically it is more likely to come into play with women applying to adopt hubby's Thai nationality.  A woman who got married at 19 and had a kid immediately could be eligible to apply at 20 which could be less than the age of majority in her country.  But it is inconceivable a man would have 3 years working on a salary over 40k before 21 and get 50 points. He certainly wouldn't have had time to pick up PR, so he would have to be married.

On 10/29/2021 at 7:51 AM, ubonjoe said:

A representative office, regional office or branch office needs to be registered as such to get a work permit and etc.

Although their staff work for a legal entity registered in Thailand, they work for companies incorporated overseas which is what creates the ambiguity. As mentioned, Immigration at the working level took the view in my case that working for the Thai rep office of a company incorporated overseas didn't meet the requirements for PR but when someone intervened at the Pol Maj Gen level on my behalf, they were willing to make the interpretation that working for a legal entity registered in Thailand was acceptable.  

Going back to the original question of can you get PR working for a foreign company, while rep offices and branch offices of foreign companies may be in a grey area, especially the rep offices which cannot pay Thai corporate income tax, actually working for a foreign company registered in Thailand is definitely fine, i.e. a company that is allowed to have 100% foreign ownership due to the various exemptions from the FBA.

4 hours ago, DrJoy said:

For Joe-

 

Foreigners working for a non-Thai company, are they eligible to apply for PR? what do the regulations say?

I got PR working for a foreign company.  I was the representative of a representative office which legally is similar to a branch office of a foreign company. Initially I was told I would be rejected for not working for a company registered in Thailand (and paying Thai tax) but was able to use a connection to pull strings at Immigration to get over that hurdle. I think they stretched the definition, i.e. I was working for a rep office that was registered in Thailand.  Since we had to file our audited annual expenses with the Ministry of Commerce, we had records of having spent a fair bit of money in Thailand, way above the minimum requirement, remitted from overseas over several years which helped.   

But to all intents and purposes I believe Joe is right that it is normally impossible to get PR without working for a Thai registered company.  However, it may still be possible for someone employed by a substantial foreign company to apply, e.g. Thai branch of a foreign bank or airline, which are the only foreign branches allowed these days and they get to pay Thai tax anyway.

4 hours ago, orientalist said:

I wonder if any of us applied to the Tax Office to change tax number to ID card number (as is the case with Thais) after obtaining PR? I didn't, and my employer at the time didn't. Nobody seemed to care. As a result of that, I can't get my annual tax refund paid via Promptpay. Also, the Tax Office send mail to my current address rather than my landlady's address, which is convenient. I haven't had any mail to my tabien baan address in the 15 years I've had PR.

 

Similarly, nobody informed Social Security of my new PR status and ID number, so (I am now retired) I applied for the Covid vaccine using my Social Security number rather than Thai ID.

My experience was I went to a new job after getting PR and gave the company my new ID number without informing the Revenue Dept of the change.  The company used the new number for my payroll and I also filed my PNG91 under the new number, eventually transitioning to online filing.  Then I moved to a new job and gave the HR dept my docs and explained that the ID number in my tabien baan was now my tax number.  The numbskulls ignored this and everything else I told them as they couldn't handle the fact that PRs have a status any different to the all the other expat staff. Since they didn't have a foreigner's tax ID for me, the idiots actually applied for one and used that in my payroll details for the 3 years I worked there, despite several messages from me that they were using an incorrect tax ID for me. I got my Thai citizenship while I was there and gave them copies of my ID card and other new docs but they continued to use the bogus foreigner tax ID for me. You would think this would have led to a problem with the RD but it didn't.  I filed my PNG91 online each year using my correct ID number and claimed tax back successfully, submitting company tax documents with the wrong ID number on them without generating any queries.

Anyone who has just got PR could maybe try registering online with the RD with their new 13 digit number.  They don't seem to care if the employer continues to use the foreigner tax ID, as long as the name is the same.  Social Security is different.  My employee also put me in the system under the fake foreigner number and I tried to change it when I still had PR but they refused.  They said they would only change it, if I got citizenship but after that I got kicked out the system without a vested pension for changing jobs after 60.  So I no longer had a reason to change the number.  Getting the contributions refunded using my ID card number was no problem though.  So I assume that, like the RD,. they have no problem recognising members who change their ID numbers owing to getting PR or citizenship.

On 10/5/2021 at 11:17 PM, cocoonclub said:

Tabien baan:

 

• Is my landlord needed in the whole process? I recall I read somewhere that the landlord needs to get me into a house registration but I've never met him and I doubt he would do that. Would it be easier to move in with my gf?

 

I can't help with the other questions because I didn't need to do them for PR in simpler days.  I don't think you need a yellow tabien baan (or pink ID card) to apply for PR  but I assume you should submit them, if you have them.  However, once you have PR it is an important legal requirement that you get on a blue tabien baan.  You are right in that most landlords will refuse to put tenants on their tabien baan.  It is a hassle for them and they probably don't want to make a tenant the householder, which every tabien baan needs to have.  I managed to do it with much cajoling of the landlord but he refused to give me even a copy of the blue book.  So I had to go the district office to get certified one page print outs of my entry which are only valid for three months. 

So, if you can get a tabien baan without having to bother your landlord, that would be preferable. It doesn't matter that you don't live at that address but you need to be able get hold of any official mail that might be sent to you there, even though this is quite rare.  If you intend to apply for citizenship later one, you will do better with a tabien baan in Bangkok which allows application at the specialised Special Branch nationality department.

47 minutes ago, onthemoon said:

I read in this forum that the documents (after being successful) will be sent to the Amphur/Khet where you were registered when you went through the process. A poster reported that there was a delay of weeks (or was it months?) because the documents now had to be reforwarded the the amphur where he lived, and where he had changed his tabien baan back to. The amphur where you are registered at time of getting the Thai ID is the one who needs to be have documents officially sent to them.

So, I would think it is wiser to keep the tabien baan in Bangkok - you will have one more trip to do, but you will get the Thai ID faster. 

Decision is yours, of course, and I am only reporting second-hand.

I think there are probably good reasons why people wait till they've safely got their ID cards before moving their tabien baan back to where they live. Probably not worth the risk of throwing a spanner into the works.

8 hours ago, moochai87 said:

Do I have to? Is this definitely required? Or it is just because they do it more often in Bangkok and so the process is likely to be smoother?

You don't have to change your tabien baan to Bangkok but it is advisable. The problem is that the law requires you to apply to Special Branch in the province you reside but Bangkok is the only province where Special Branch has a dedicated nationality section. So someone in the provincial Special Branch office has to agree to take up your case and figure out how applications are done which is quite a hassle with high risks of making mistakes.  The MoI is rather haughty and has a disdain for the police which makes it hard for them to call up for coaching. This is obviously impractical and makes no sense but they can't change the law. There are successful applications from other provinces but very few and they are mainly provinces that have traditionally tourist provinces, e.g. Chiang Mai, Phuket and Chonburi. Obviously there are a lot of foreigners living in Nonthaburi.  I don't remember seeing announcements of people with addresses there getting nationality but probably there have been some.  You could go to the Special Branch provincial office and ask about applying.  If you get a good response from someone who seems to understand the process well and is willing to do it for you, you could give it a try. Often people get given the run around in the provinces, specially more rural provinces and are sent around to different offices who send them back to where they just came from and/or ask for bribes without having the slightest idea what the process is.  Some provinces just pretend that there is no way for foreigners to get Thai citizenship to get rid of you.  I am sure Nontaburi will be more sophisticated than that but is still unlikely to be as smooth and efficient as Bangkok which sometimes messes up applications anyway.  Luckily, if you decide to apply in Bangkok, it is not too much trouble to get into the SB Bangkok office from Nontaburi for meetings.  

11 hours ago, onthemoon said:

Did the interviewers come together for just one applicant, or did they use the opportunity to interview a whole batch? Was anybody here in that batch, and when were your documents moved to the MoI? (I just want to check again how long the waiting period is at the moment from MoI receiving docs until interview.)

They normally interview a batch. Enough to keep them busy from 9.00 am to about 4.00 pm.

3 hours ago, GarryP said:

One of the reasons I will not stay on over 60 is because I want the 400 days severance then, so I will definitely not be staying on over 60 on the same contract. Luckily, our office has set retirement at 60 anyway. If they wish to retain anyone past that, they put them on yearly contracts and usually reduce salary by about 25%. So I'd get my severance then anyway. I would not agree to a delay in that if they wanted to keep me on, because it is tied to current salary. If I waited a couple of years to retire and my salary was reduced, I'd be taking a big hit. As to SS, if I was hired on short term contracts I do not think they would be making any contributions for me. But then there is the issue of income/withholding tax and whether the SS Office can track the same, see that I have another income stream and refuse to pay me my pension.

 

Like I said to GabbaGabbbaHey, I am going to have to do some research on this. It is certainly getting more confusing.

Severance pay for retirees is fairly recent and a nice touch but I fear it might put employers off from employing people who are a few years from retirement age. They are entitled to re-hire retired staff on lower salaries after paying severance but can't cut salaries without staff consent otherwise. The last company I worked for tried to give everyone in my department pay cuts when revenue was not coming in as hoped and got HR to send them letters ordering them to come and sign consent forms for their pay cuts without the option of being made redundant and paid severance on full pay.  Most agreed because they were worried about finding new jobs but one girl, who was confident of getting another job, cut up rough and went to the Labour Ministry. Confronted with a letter from the ministry the HR department backed down pretty fast and she got her full severance pay and moved straight to a new job. Disgusting the tricks some companies get up to.

3 hours ago, GarryP said:

Not really something I had considered, but now you mention it I'll have to look into it further as I may take on part-time work after retirement. Potentially the company I currently work for may want to keep me on. The big thing for me is not to delay payment of severance pay which will be due upon retirement. As such, I will officially retire at 60 at the end of 2022 regardless what the company wants, so I can collect the 400 days severance. Then if they want to keep me on one year contracts after that, we can negotiate. 

 

If I find out anything more about collecting an SS pension and working part-time or other work, I'll let you know.      

I was told by my accountant that you are not entitled to draw the SS pension, unless you are fully retired without income from employment, but I don't know, if that's correct.  In your case, I believe you will no longer be a contributing SS member, if retire at 60 and get re-engaged on short-term contracts.  But, if you were to stay on over 60 on the same contract without retiring, you would remain in it.  Their rules are rather bizarre and illogical but that's normal for Thai government departments.

3 hours ago, GarryP said:

I will receive a wonderful pension of just over Baht 5,000 a month on the SS. I do not have the option of staying on for healthcare so will avail myself of the 30Baht scheme or whatever it is called now. As I will be moving upcountry to an area where there is no SS hospital (the nearest is 85 kms away), it really does not make much sense to stay on the SS for healthcare even if I could.  So no loss in my case. 

Lack of private hospitals is problem for the SS scheme upcountry.  Our maid retired back home and we kept her in the SS scheme through our small company as she wants to build up enough contributions for a few more years to qualify for that pension which is material for her. At first she thought she would have to give up the SS to get her regular diabetes treatment at the local government hospital but eventually she found a solution closer than she thought.  I don't really understand how it works for SS members in those rural areas.  Most small employers are in the black economy but there are large employers like factories and Lotus who have to put their staff in SS. I don't know how it works for them when the nearest SS hospital is 50+km away but the government hospital, which they are theoretically not allow to use, is 2 minutes away on a motorbike.  

1 hour ago, Neeranam said:

Has anyone been to the Prakan Sangkom to change their details, after becoming Thai? I just realized that I forgot to go and wonder about if it is necessary. 

Any thoughts about if it is better to go on the Universal Health care scheme(30b) or stay on the Social Security? 

There were some posts about this a while back.  It can be done, although not a big deal, if you don't do it on time.  If you want to claim something from them in future, you will probably need to have your ID card no. match your SS no.

You are not allowed to be on both.  You have to get out of the SS system if you want to be on 30 baht.  The hospital is able to check online to make sure they are not giving 30 baht treatment to SS members.  Who knows if they will make the match, if you don't change your SS number though.  I have not made use of either scheme but I believe the SS system of healthcare is better, as it is provided by private hospitals, even if these are not top tier private hospitals.  However, in the past there have been certain expensive treatments, e.g. retrovirals for HIV that were available on the 30 baht but not SS, which resulted in people quitting their jobs because the treatment was more than their salaries. I hope they have fixed this problem.  Of course leaving SS means you might not accumulate the 15 years of contributions for your SS pension, meagre though it is. Employers are required to put all employees in SS except for directors and shareholders for some reason.  I think foreign teachers at international schools are also excluded too but I don't really understand the rules for teachers.  SS is nearly bust following the COVID payments shelled out and they have managed the investments incompetently and with corruption.   So they will definitely try t keep benefits as low as possible but I believe the government will have to bail them out, if they get to the of insolvency which is probably fast approaching since they started having to pay the first pensions a couple of years ago.

55 minutes ago, onthemoon said:

I wasn't hallucinating. There is no new law (yet) but there is discussion about it: Caution urged for relaxing laws on foreigners owning land in Thailand - Thailand News - ASEAN NOW - News, Travel & Forum

Amongst those who have seen this type of proposal before - i)  the 1999 Land Code amendment allowing foreigners to buy land on conditions that could never be met and ii) and the original Elite Card offering a nominee structure to buy land - there is a healthy degree of skepticism about the likelihood of this reform ever getting done in a way that could work, given the huge opposition from nearly all Thais.  Having said that I was surprised that it got as far as cabinet approval which shows the decision makers in the cabiet were convinced the overall visa proposals might really result in a huge inflow of foreign lolly to bail out the Thai economy.  Even ML Chayotid, the ex JP Morgan guy, whose brain child it was said he thought his proposals would probably be shot down before they got to the cabinet.  Personally I hope it goes through, as Mrs Arkady and I can't wait to unload our portfolio of flood prone rice fields in Isaan to the unsuspecting hordes of foreign billionaires who will be looking for idyllic rural locations to settle down at with their trophy young Thai wives. 

I have found a FB entry for a medical doctor of the same name of the Brit who lost his nationality in 2004 working at a missionary hospital in Chiang Rai. That could figure for someone who might have been born in Thailand to foreign missionary parents and automatically got Thai nationality at birth and then came back to work in Thailand himself. There is not much on him though and nothing to confirm that he was born in Thailand or about his nationality. Doctor is not one of the professions reserved for Thai nationals but they need to pass an exam in Thai which he probably could, if he had to post the event.  Assuming he is one and the same, which seems likely, who knows what happened?  Perhaps someone was out to get him. NGOs and missionaries sometimes run up against vindictive local officials in areas they work. I don't want to post his personal details online but anyone interested can google the Thai spelling of his name in the the RG announcement.