Presnock

32 minutes ago, Captain Monday said:

Similar then, but participation in US social security is mandatory. Mandatory in that the payments, which people call social security taxes but are actually *premiums are automatically deducted from paychecks and employer contributions. 
 

*I went to a retirement and investment forum sponsored by our Union  years ago. There the RI subject matter expert there  claimed that social security is not a government pension by definition but a type of insurance policy.  

THE DTA between US and Thai specifically talks about Social Security payments  read the DTA

5 hours ago, Driller said:

Do you know the ones who do not require 80k? I would be interested.

all one has to do is google "LTR Board of Investment" and it will give one the 4 categories of "wealthy" folks.

3 minutes ago, Mike Lister said:

I don't understand what your argument is or the point you're trying to make, let me summarise!

 

The IRS doesn't want people filing if they earn below certain level.

Millions here earn above the required level to file but don't.

Let's not talk about it.

 

Is that about right?

 

The LTR is advertised by the BOI stating that foreign earned income remitted into Thailand is not taxable if you have an wealthy pensioner LTR that is the advertised benefit.  It further states that if you earn assessable income within Thailand you do have to pay the tax.  I still do not understand why these questions continue daily/hourly or whatever when NO ONE really knows what the final regulations will be so we all should just wait until that time comes around.  

yeah and to top that, daughter lost her Thai passport she believes on the plane but immigration let her in with her Thai ID and told her to go to "lost and found" and report the loss.

17 hours ago, NativeBob said:

Switching passports is often confusing with "how to leave TH with passport A and enter [say MY] with passport B?"
Easier than I thought, immigration officers don't give a flying banana about it. 

Yeah, now Thailand immigration don't care about dual citizens and can use whatever passport when coming in.  Don't have to get visa etc. Daughter just went through it

On 4/14/2024 at 1:47 AM, Jingthing said:

Not putting this on a health topic because no responsible health practioner is going to advise taking a supplement for a hoped for result that hasn't been tested on humans.

 

I am not recommending it either, not that I have any medical credibility on the topic either way.

 

So this is more of a general discussion / philosophy topic. 

 

You may have heard that Taurine has shown very good results in life extension in mice.

 

This is the same ingredient that is found in energy drinks, but energy drinks have lots of other stuff.

 

Apparently, to get a roughly equivalent dose you'd need to drink 5 energy drinks a day and you don't want to do that!

 

But wait. Taurine itself is available in supplements.

 

Apparently, Taurine in reasonable doses is not known to be harmful but if you try it for life extension you wouldn't know --

 

if it would work at all (no human research)

 

what the optimal dose would be even though you can rough guess (no human research)

 

if perhaps it would be harmful taken over a long time (no human research)

 

So this cannot and is not recommended as we wait (for how long? decades?)  for human research to be done.

 

So here's the 64,000 baht question.

 

If you're already old, you don't have the time to wait for the human research.

 

Would it really be so crazy for such people to take taurine supplements now?

 

What do they have to lose if it's a mistake? Obviously much less than younger people.

Well I follow Dr. William Li's books on food tofight disease, food for longevity etic.  If I decided that I did want to try taurine, I would not take synthetic  taurine but the naturally occuring taurine would probably be safer  in my opinion.  There are so many natural foods that can help the body defenses and thus maybe allow one to live more health and longer lives.  This has been proven in many cases and much has been learned in the the very recent years.  Good luck, enjoy be happy,

On 4/13/2024 at 7:36 PM, Nick Carter icp said:

 

   It isn't a war crime to cut of utilities to the enemy combatants ,  as Hamas were receiving the aid and utilities , then Israel isn't legally required to supply its enemy with anything .

   Could you post the war crime up , the one that you are referring to, so I can read what it says ?

A tad off line here but talking of cutting off utilities, in New York, illegal immigrants are squatting in vacant houses owned by other people some of whom were on vacation so their house was "vacant" and now has squatters.  In NY and some other places, one cannot evict those squatters immediately sometimes several months of court time and it is ILLEGAL for the property owner to shut off utilities while someone is squatting on his property even though that property owner is having to pay for the utilities.   Any damage the squatters do to the property has to be paid for by the property owner too.!  

Already past that I think.  My generation had it the best growing up and career wise - spoiled a tad by VN but since then going downhill fast. Nowadays just embarrassed by USA politicians as they would fit in the worse countries easily.  Hopefully, if there is no war things will get better as the weather continues blasting countries one way or the other on a daily basis.  I spent some time in Africa too and saw just how poor they are and how the west stole and still steals so much from them.  Many of the ancestors of those fleeing into Europe today were treated as slaves by the same countries.  Seems as though very

few people as a whole are happy today, thus many problem interacting with each other.  take care be good.

1 hour ago, Hummin said:

Thats a truth with modificactions, and would take to long to explain here if you are not willing to take a deep dive in to reading for yourself. Have you read Torah and the old testament? 

 

History show no difference in how religious tools have been used. Public executions, burning women, demon exorcisme, cruisaders, and monks who sworn in to god abuse boys just to mention some few of religiously holy christianity, but we like to think we are better and chategorize everyone else we do not agree with as demons and much much worse than our selves. 

 

One thing to understand what is necessary to keep a Empire going with best intentions, and when it doesnt. 

 

Do you believe Germans was just evil, or was it the time being and the right circumstanses allowing them to become evil? 

 

Just for the record, even I am ashamed many things we have done to become and be where we are today, I rather stay patriotic than allowing us loose out the next decades for Russia or China and even more influence of Islam to my country. Thats doesnt mean we should not think frely and see the reality we have deal with on daily basis. 

 

The western christian world have created alot of chaos, and will continue to create chaos, and thats the nature of it, simple as that. 

 

 

mankind at its best but not many western nations today are willing to treat women as slaves, burn them torture them regularly, rape if the woman won't marry them I guess I should say girl as the Muslims will marry 9 year olds to 80 year old...I lived in a Muslim fundamentalist area for a couple of years.  Terroists killed a couple of my friends and but for some unknown reason my wife and I were not there at that particular time.  Even those considered friends laughed when westerners died.  Now the Muslims are fleeing to western countries in enough numbers to slew the voting and getting Muslim politicians and trying to change countries to their religion.  The west is being outnumbered and once China or Russia join together with Iran and N.Korea and the "stans, they will overwhelm us.  Scary to say the least.  good luck to all and HAPPY SONGKRAN a much better water war only.

On 4/8/2024 at 8:29 AM, Hummin said:

Muslims are as delusional as any others who trust their sources 100% and  think they know the truth. Plenty of good examples found here as well.

But most western believers (christians) believe in peace or peaceful settling of problems whereas the Muslim radicals follow the Koran which okays killing of non-believers - nothing good about that. 

18 hours ago, dingdongrb said:

"So it could just be my immigration guy had a bug up his ass. "

 

"Think you will find it depends on the immigration office."

 

I thought it has been identified numerous times before:

 

It doesn't matter what the rules/laws are because it can change at any time due to:

 

- Immigration office location

- Immigration officer processing the application

- Mood of the Immigration officer processing the application

- Applicant's behavior

- Moon phase

I did the 65k a month coming from my stateside bank to bangkok bank - no source on the funding other than the credit advice and the io didn't want that as it came from the states.  only wanted bb info.

19 hours ago, FarangFB said:

Went out on a family holiday in January, and once back in Pattaya wife tried to do a TM30 report at immigration and it was absolutely packed, huge line stretching out on the sun, we just gave up. Btw the house isn't ours, but wife has copies of all documents needed.

 

I'm on a marriage/family extension due in September. Last year I also missed out on a TM30 and they gave us an earful. I don't really mind paying the fine.

 

The choices I have are apparently:

 

A- Go do in person on a not so busy day.
B- Don't do it and get busted again on extension day.
C- Use the website tm30.io - although it seems honest I feel a bit awkward giving passport and other documents, they aren't really an official immigration service.

 

My driver's license expires in a couple months, I think I'll need to visit immigration to get a residence certificate, wonder if the TM30 has any effect on this.

 

I would really love to sort it without having to go there. 

for the agents, you just have to upload all the necessary documents.  They in turn will charge you a minimal amount when there is a copy of the TM.30 from immmigration.

38 minutes ago, Des1 said:

So much of a priority is placed on tourism right now (rich people preferred) because other areas of the economy are failing. Time to bring in casinos, easy cash. It speaks to the failure of the ruling class to actually consider a long term economic plan that will compete with neighbouring countries. Thialand wants to be the "hub" of pretty much anything you can imagine. Not going to happen. They will continue to import more and more chinese products and grind down thier own production. It's not enough to ban the chinese import of elephant pants. good grief!  oiiii, sad state of affairs.

speaking of the import from China, read the Thai Examiner report of the import from China of the their e-waste which the Chinese banned in 2017 but last govt here signed on for it to come to Thailand - guess they will bury in Tak with the cadium waste that they're digging up.

I recall in the mid-70's driving down to HuaHin and once on the beach looking all the way down the beach and not seeing anyone else!  Now they report 10 million tourists have arrived in Thailand so far this year!  Going for a record.

Suggest folks interested in this to read the 10 APRIL 2024 Thai Examiner.

Hey, not sure if you have been following the local news media about the missing cadium waste from Tak that was sent south to this region and then began to go missing.  The Thai Examiner has an interesting article in their 10 April, 2024 news, suggest others read it.

On 4/10/2024 at 3:23 PM, 1tent42 said:

I applied for the LTR visa and submitted my pension benefit letter that showed I have a pension of at least $80K a year.

 

BOI keeps asking me for my tax return and 1099s.  Is this normal?  I thought the pension benefit letter would be sufficient since I've exceeded the $80K minimum requirement for passive income.

when I was doing my application, I sent them the 1099R's and because OPM puts 4 on one page, and the 1099R is very small I guess they didn't understand it, so I added my 1040 and immediately was approved with the letter from my govt sponsored health insurance company.

On 4/1/2024 at 12:13 PM, HerewardtheWake said:

PIB's points are quite important. I am sure BoI will insist on an LTR visa holder's having met the requirements during all the time the visa has been valid. 

well, if a US pensioner as this LTR then the historical documentation should be easy to provide if one uses annual 1040 as we are required to maintain 5 years worth of submitted forms anyway. I get an annual form from OPM also that documents that I still have the health insurance too.  

1 hour ago, Presnock said:

LTR - wealthy pensioner! now 50,000K baht good for 10 years with other benefits also.  google it as there is plenty of information on it.  Board of Investment very helpful and patient.  Can be accomplished in 3 weeks.

as an aside on this LTR - one can obtain a work permit also from the BOI when doing the LTR process.  However, the tax exempt if for foreign funds, not tax exempt if you are working in Thailand.  Requirements for such visa and benefits are provided by googling the LTR.

48 minutes ago, Liquorice said:

If you ever need to withdraw cash from a branch counter, as opposed to an ATM, you'd be requested to supply your passbook and passport.
If you didn't change your passport details, then your ID won't match the information on their system.

 

What they appear to have not informed you is you'd have to carry and provide both passports in that situation.
 

Thanks for the heads up - if I ever need to withdraw cash then I will be sure to carry both passports.  But, the odds of that are pretty slim as I haven't done a cash withdrawal for more than 10 years ago anyway but...one never knows especially here in Thailand.  

On 9/18/2023 at 12:37 PM, ChasingTheSun said:

What visa is that which includes a non-tax clause?

LTR - wealthy pensioner! now 50,000K baht good for 10 years with other benefits also.  google it as there is plenty of information on it.  Board of Investment very helpful and patient.  Can be accomplished in 3 weeks.

On 9/18/2023 at 12:24 PM, Time Traveller said:

This is a really concerning statement because wealth is not the same thing as income. Simply having cash in a foreign account and then transferring it into Thailand is not income and therefore should not be taxable.   If they do try something like  (they did once before with capital controls in 2007) it will be a complete disaster.  

 

In any case, if they adopt a system similar to other countries that tax worldwide income then I don't think it should be of much concern for Americans as the tax treaty means that most of their retirement or investment income won't be taxable in Thailand.  Other countries will need to check their tax treaty.  

 

On a separate note, one thing I never understood about Thailand immigration is that they never considered foreign income tax filings as part of the evidence of income for visa extensions.  Because no one ever is going to declare to the IRS that their income higher than what it truly is.  It's definitely a much more reliable indicator for proof of income than some Embassy witnessed statement.

Well, when I would go for my yearly extension with the embassy letter until that ceased, I always included my monthly credited advisers from my US bank as proof of the funds I receive.  The IO's used to say"oh too much paperwork!" and then 2 years ago they immediately returned all my US bank statements, saying they only wanted the paperwork from the Thai bank.  This was CM.

Just now, DrJack54 said:

A Tip: get your bank to update passport #.

If you are using money in bank the income letter will need to reflect your new pp #

That's immigration issue not a bank issue. 

switched to LTR so 10 more years of not being concerned with this crap, though I would be exempt as my pension is also a US govt Pension and the US never fails to deduct taxes every month.  But, on other expat forums in this region, some countries are ignoring any pensions for taxation purposes but seems like ex-pats everywhere do have concerns too.  Amazing that there are so many users every time this is opened up again.  One would think that the local govt would recognize this as a potential deterent for future retirees and their monies plus those that do leave when they might not even be affected by this new process.  Good luck to all!  Stay happy ...seeing as how so many economic "experts" are predicting worldwide recession! in the near future anyway.