khunjeff

Even though Thipsamai is famous, I've never met anyone - Thai or foreign - who is particularly impressed by their pad Thai. At this point, they seem to be coasting along on a reputation from long ago.

A very large part of the discussion and angst about this issue has been precisely the question of who actually has to file a tax return, what information would be included on it, and how to account for income that is not taxable in Thailand due to DTAs, LTR status, etc. - so I'm afraid it's not nearly as straightforward as you say.

Although I've heard Trump can be fairly pleasant in one-on-one encounters, the words "graceful", "generous", and "warm" are not normally associated with him...

Are any members here familiar with that area? I'm confused by the statement that he "crashed into an overpass". Did he run into one of the pillars holding it up, or is part of it low enough that he could literally knock his head against the span?

I guess it's easier to get praise if you punish anyone who gives you criticism.

Agree - the story starts out talking about getting data on "income" and "earnings", and then says that will lead to a tax on "wealth". I don't know whether the speaker wasn't clear in his presentation, or the reporter didn't explain it clearly, but I'm not following this at all.

Problem: Chinese entertainers are answering fake job ads and then being forcibly abducted to scam centers in Burma with assistance from corrupt Thai officials Solution: cut the period of stay for Chinese tourists from 30 days to 15 days Wait, what? 🤔

For the love of god, their answer to every problem is...checkpoints. Not only are checkpoints a very poor and inefficient strategy for crime prevention in general, but foreigners who were victimized by these scams have reported that they were stopped at checkpoints while being transported to the border, and were waved through when the officers recognized the faces of the traffickers. So yeah, it still all comes down to "Directive 1" on his list, as usual - and we know how successful that's likely to be.

This case has been going on for decades now. The sale of the land was long ago determined to have been illegal, and at least one person went to prison years ago for the corruption involved in the project - and only now the titles are being revoked?

"With effective from April 1, 2019, New York branch only process ACH with appropriate IAT format and all non-IAT transactions will be returned." https://www.bangkokbank.com/en/Personal/Other-Services/Transfers/Transferring-Into-Thailand/Transfer-money-from-US-to-Thailand-via-Bangkok-Bank-NewYork-branch

That's a confusingly specific designation 🧐

Yeah, because charging 150k baht obviously sounds like a normal price for importing rabbits. Sure... 🙄

Treating people like these as criminals - rather than victims, which is clearly what they are - is one of the reasons why Thailand keeps ending up on Trafficking in Persons watchlists. They fled from captors who had confiscated their passports, and have no desire to stay in Thailand, so just turn them over to their embassy and call it a day, instead of engaging in this jingoistic nonsense.

I thought the GOP wanted all decisions related to education to be made at the local level, with no "interference" from Washington? 🤔

The piratical DCC (Dynamic Currency Conversion) offered at some ATMs and point of sale credit card terminals - which proposes an exchange rate up to 6% worse than the one provided by Visa or MasterCard - lets you choose how you will be billed, not how you want to pay. The merchant will be paid in THB no matter which option you select. In any case, I have no idea why the speaker added the bit about credit card payments being converted to baht. Any credit card payment in Thailand could theoretically be considered a remittance, though the odds that Thai tax authorities would actually sift through hundreds of millions of card transactions looking for tax evaders seems low to non-existent.

Yes, embassies can perform any marriage registrations that they want. Whether a given country will recognize those registrations, on the other hand, is a different matter, and that's the case even for opposite sex marriages.

So, this "course" is taught by police officers in a university classroom... Police: "we had nothing to do with this" University: "we had nothing to do with this" The mind boggles 🤔

And solving the traffic problem in Bangkok within six months. His absurd promises are never-ending.

"The right needs to stop falsely claiming that the Nazis were socialists" https://wapo.st/400GoQw

As another posted has already noted, Anutin has nothing to do with the law going into effect. But even if he did, embassies can issue whatever documents they want, regardless of what Thai laws may or may not be in effect - and they also don't "give the permission to get marry", they just give documentation that their citizen is free to marry (or claims to be so).

Not in one fell swoop, no, but we regularly see stories in the media about people whose accounts are emptied by the scammers in a dozen consecutive 49k transfers, and the banks apparently don't recognize that as suspicious. The problem is that so many victims absolutely believe that they know better, and will continue to transfer money even after the bank has explained to them that they're being scammed. And people complain about government restrictions, but after they've been scammed will demand to know "why didn't the government do anything to protect me?" So there are no easy answers.

This is actually far more interesting than the part about airports. There are already a number of small brew pubs illegally selling draft beer from small producers and home brewers, some of which is of very high quality. Legalizing this will hopefully lead to more production and more venues selling these artisanal brews.

Yes, they're gone - a really poorly thought-out idea that will accomplish pretty much nothing. No and no. I've never been clear on what exactly this measure was meant to address, since even convenience stores at international airports were already exempt from the alcohol sales hours restrictions. Did the 7-11s have to halt sales on that small number of religious days? Maybe, but getting rid of that wouldn't seem to merit this grand announcement.

They don't even have enforcement on the much-publicized "special occasions" - they just have hundreds of extra checkpoints, most of which are filled with people sitting around drinking coffee and playing with their phones while not even looking at the road. And since I've never seen anyone pulled over for driving erratically or dangerously - the drunk driving measures are only enforced at checkpoints - I don't see what difference these increased penalties will make.

I've noticed those, and had the same thought as you did. But they light up (a blue light, I think?) with every person who passes through, so I'm not sure...it's certainly possible that an RFID tag would generate a light of a different color, or a sound, but I have yet to see that happen 🤷