Presnock

Yeah ask the regular Afghanis - those everyday workers, women students etc, if it is better now that the US soldiers left and the Taliban and ISIS are running things? One of the latest laws - only a female doctor can examine an Afghani woman yet Aghani women are not allowed to go to school even -how can they become a doctor to check on the females?

yeah all those religious leaders that fled IRAN when the SHah was there, even though towards his leaving in '79, life had changed tremendously for a Muslim state. Women wore western fashions, teens listened to western music, females were allowed to go to all levels of school including government paid for college and women could become just about anything as far as a career went. Then, the Muslim Imams in France zoomed back into the country and SLAM BAM maam get out of school cover your head and body all the time. Same thing for Afghanistan, let an exile be the one the US supported to become the leader - crooked as all get out, even stole a planeload of US cash as he story goes. He sure didn't unite the different warlords against the rebels.

One can also check "accuweather (your location) for air quality at the central office (your location) I check each day and to date, the readings are fairly close to what my personal monitor says. Though in the past, I heard that one central reading area had a local fire truck come and spray the area near the monitor for half an hour. Their readings were always a lot lower than that of my monitor.

lazada and I'm sure shoppee too have many monitors for sale. Some are large, some have multigases readings, some are small enough to carry with one when jogging or walking outside. some only measure the 2.5 microns. check them out and see if any meet your needs/requirements.

one is not limited to 65k oonly per month, just a minimum of 65k each and every month of the 12 months.

Well, if your bank is based in one of the signatories of the OECD agreement in July of last year, that is exactly what HSBC will be required to do..BTW China was a signatory of that agreement too.

The LTR visa, unlike other visas prohibits tax collection by the Thai government from the holder due to Royal Decree. I do not agree that if the govt changes the law, that it will affect the holder of the LTR. If the govt could and did change that law, then believe they would probably wipe out the DTA's also. But these are my opinion only and there are too few people who really have any idea what is going to happen.

Lazada and probably shoppee both have all kinds of measuring widgets, cheap and/or expensive - can check to see what gets measure when you turn it on. Today air is horrible here in BKK.

And what pray tell were the "certain criterias'?

because the US politicians need to fill their re-election chests with more and more donations from China

yeah I was always taught for chapped lips, try horse crap, rub some on your lips and you will stop licking them which causes the chapped lips. I never tried it but just thinking about it taught me a "valuable" lesson. One never really knows when such a recommendation could or could not be valuable.

Yeah and maybe have to take out aloand to pay that 500 baht fine! for that amount, I am sure there are probably folks willing to disobey the signs anyway. Just my opinion!

well this mornng I took the dogs outside - monitor says 125 and flashing RED! If you even walk in this crappy air right now you probably won't make it to the gasping stage. I do think that after exercising in polluted air one should have their lungs checked. Good luck anyway

Yeah a friend of mine bought his own monitor for 2.5 micron pollutants in he Chiang Mai area. He read the daily reports of the pollution and they were always way below his monitor so he learned where the district was monitoring the pollution and then reporting. He went to that location, prior to the district team taking a reading, the fire department had a water truck come to that area and spray the monitoring spot for over a half hour and did this whenever there was going to be an official report. After this, I bought my own monitor and still use it daily many times.

Negative on that. SPorts teams even buy masks that restrict air intake prior to having a game with another team at high altitude. I jogged for years wearing a mask with no problems noticed.

yeah and at the same time those broadcasters of the meetings and at least one article in the Thai Examiner indicate that there are still some fairly strong Thai that are against this new tax policy as originally stated. However, since the initial reports of that, I have not seen anything at all from them or those against the new program nor anything of substance either. It is great that a couple of folks have researched official documentation and have provide us with that material so that we can formulate possible actions based on what the RD/Govt finally decides which might not be until next March 2025. Enjoy whatever we came here for until the deadlines are met.

IF inheriting a few big $$$ and retirement eligible, just opt for a LTR visa, 50,000 k and then no taxes, no 90-day reports etc. and all legal

That is what they said at the beginning "all" income remitted into Thailand, then as reality started checking in from within and from without, DTA's etc, watching other ASEAN countries how they are handling it etc. But if you don't pay taxes on your income in your native state due to a national law included in the DTA, I am pretty sure they will try to make you pay here. It will all boil down to possible law cases against them as well as so many not actually making any "assessible" income for them to count on. None of us knows for sure what the outcome will be nor when it will become clearer so just hang in there and enjoy whatever you moved to Thailand for.

Yessir but you gotta let all those refugees in to counter the number of illegals pouring in from the south on a daily basis. I think I read the other day that over 300K illegals crossed over in November for a new record. Gotta give them all shelter, food , education (some through college even). I am not against immigration but unless something is controlled it runs amok - EU is having the same problem with boat loads daily either making it or drowning. A horrible situation made worse by tax dollars going to the <deleted>hold countries but instead of improving conditions for their citizens, they just send them to the developed countries. Now it is affection elections too as far-right folks are getting more and more support from the citizens tired of fighting for their benefits. But, daughter is doing well at the number one university here and is happier than anytime since prior to the pandemic. She even has her future mapped out and where she will go to school after this stint in Thailand. BTW, I am a former government worker who spent many years at the Embassy in Thailand but all that goes for naught when some counsular officers says "not approved".

Not doubting your intent but you assumption that folks may do something about it but looking around, I notice very few farangs wearing masks and the news recently has carried numerous articles of the pollution in the air. The PM signed an agreement with Cambodia to supposedly lower the pollutants and he has reportedly ORDERED the Thai AF to do all they can too to help but every year we hear the same stories from the government officials and yet the same pollution or worse is here. I first came here in the early 70's and when burning season came so did the smoky air. Then there was very little corn grown and I don't remember much of sugar can either but now with those added to the burnings, and together with forest fires set to clear land or clear underbrush so they find mushrooms, the pollution is with us longer and longer and stronger it seems every year. Look at the NASA satellite showing fires in SEA and S. Asia. Cambodia the other day was completely red with the wind blowing the smoke into Thailand! Thailand too has a lot of fires going...until the government gets serious enough to force the local governments to arrest the fire starters nothing will change in my opinion.

well, When our daughter was to graduate from HS, accepted by US college, my wife applied for a tourist visa so that we could take our daughter back to the college and get her settled in since she had never been to the US. We owned a house, fairly new car and I had retired here 20 years before and had spent almost all that time here in Thailand. The Consulate decided that this was not reason enough to return to Thailand because my wife didn't work and we then decided on an immigrant visa. This was during the Afghanistan evacuation so immigration in the US was backed up to approximately 500K immigrants and at that time, immigration was able to process less than 40K a month - it took 14 months for our request, approved but by that time, our daughter was already enrolled in Thailand - the number one university and exactly the training that she desired so liberal arts is liberal arts. We made the decisions to just stay here in Thailand. Much cheaper, better weather and much closer to our daughter. But, maybe you will have much better luck and I wish you so. GOOD LUCK!

The school was built like a HS campus in the US with covered walkways between the different classroom buildings, that is why they had to go outside between classes.

no probably still inhale some pollutants but much lower than not taking ANY precautions. Occasionally the locals report about the number of problems hospitals are seeing more an more often due to the pollution. Yeah it is not immediately obvious that one suffers from the pollution, unless that person already has lung/breahing problems. I am not telling anyone that they should wear masks and take precautions except for my family. I am only writing these responses because of the experiences I have been around in my life (77 years). I have lived primarily in the capital cities around the world and many were just as polluted as here but the pollution just continues to spread. I ran a couple of marathons and hundreds of races, some in the later years were done wearing a mask. Did it affect my breathing? Maybe but I was never a world class runner anyway, just did it for the enjoyment and soclializling with the other runners. My wife has commented though that when we go places and I am wearing a mask that my breathings "heavier" so I guess that is my body naturally respoding to any restrictions or maybe not. Anyway like I already said, I am not telling people what they should or should not do, it is totally up to each person. I do wish all a healthy life though.

I forgot to mention that we have air purifiers in all but the bathrooms of our house too and we use them daily since the pollution levels began to climb. Had a friend, Canadian, world class almost runner who ran races in Thailand (mostly BKK) for years - upon return to Ottawa, as normal with diplomats, a complete phyiscal is given. The doctor after all the tests, xrays, etc, he said that all readings were great except my friend needed to give up smoking. My friend told the doctor that she had never smoked in her life - he then showed her the xrays of her lungs indicating that the color was due to either smoking or local pollutants if she really hadn't taken up smoking. Made a believer out of me about doctors warnings and about wearing masks.

yeah, I walk outside daily and wear an N95 mask. I notice many Thais and farangs exercising without any masks. Some of the Thais after noticing that I speak Thai, ask why I am wearing a mask. I introduce them to ACCUWEATHER (whatever your local district is) and this web site also provides air quality as well as weather conditions. I also have my own 2.5 micron meter and it comes pretty close to the accuweather readout on air quality. Living in CM for 10 years, I learned about wearing a mask but even before then I was advised by doctors visiting the embassy to never exercise outside here without a mask as they note returnees during physicals show some damage to lungs of those not taking any precautions. My daughter's school even had air purifiers in every classroom. Before the COVID pandemic, that same school would close the school due to high pollution since the students walked outside during classroom changes and so, in order to not have to close the schools her school purchased an online teaching program from Singapore and when the govt here ordered the schools closed, my daughter and her fellow students never actually missed any of the curriculum, only socializing and classroom activities.