mfd101

11 hours ago, marcusarelus said:

How many years has the income method been valid?  So, you think it's going to stop?  Based on what?  52 Immigration offices and some problems at 2?

As a straw in the wind, I went to Kap Choeng a few days ago for my 90-days report. No probs.

BUT as we were leaving my b/f raised with them my upcoming (October) retirement extension & that we would be doing the 65K income path. They immediately said No No must be 800K in the bank ... They said it twice as we queried them. We then left, alarmed & dismayed, but thinking perhaps the 2 IOs concerned simply didn't know the new rules ... ???

32 minutes ago, fishtank said:

Actually it was less than 50% who voted for this nonsence.

As you say not fair on the right thinking majority.

I sympathize with the 'right-thinking majority' But unfortunately, quite a lot of them didn't vote in the referendum. So tough!

The xrate summary at the end of the article makes fascinating scanning. Note the baht in particular.

The danger is that, as the riots continue, China will have the perfect excuse for military intervention & immediate takeover.

Which suggests - or it would if one were sufficiently paranoid - that China could well be provoking further disorders to that end.

We moved into our new Western-style house in March 2017. I had installed an expensive Italian dishwasher & an equally expensive Italian oven in the kitchen. Neither has been used once. The dishwashing is done by our 16-year-old schoolgirl niece who lives with us, and I dry. Works fine. Quick & easy. As to the oven, we cook only on the stove top. Too hot to have an oven heating the place for the next hour, and we don't exactly do mother's roast for Sunday dinner anyway ...

All of which was predictable, I guess, but not predicted. Could have saved myself a couple of thousand AUD. Could also have avoided the Thai workmen taking three goes to get the marble benchtop right. They seemed not to quite understand the concept that, to cope with a large dishwasher under the bench, the thing to do would be to install the d/w a little below floor level, rather than raising the bench 4" or 5" above normal so that not even I could use it properly, let alone a little Thai. (Sigh)

The figures about water capacity in the dams, current water levels, and current USABLE water levels always strike me as quite alarming, even when there's plenty of rain. The gap between 'water'  & 'usable water' always seems surprisingly large, far larger than I used o see in Oz or NZ.  Which suggests that the dams are not maintained or regularly dredged, so they gradually fill up with sludge & rubbish washed down from the rivers & floods.

Is that an accurate understanding?

Over time, as modernity & technology change the culture, and as contraceptive practices become more and more normal amongst the poor, the size of families gradually decreases and the value of human life rises. As happened in The West over the last 60 years.

I see it already happening here amongst the unlettered peasants of Surin. My B/F (30) is the youngest of 6 children and with a further 6 older half-brothers & -sisters from both parents. But his 5 brothers & sisters have between them produced only 9 children, with no more likely.

32 minutes ago, Bundooman said:

Me neither. 

 

I have to say, and I think I must be missing something, if only 4 million out of a population of 77 million are paying tax, where does all the money in Thailand  come from?

VAT/GST, import duties, Immigration fines ...

So only 4 million tax returns filed each year out of a 'working' population of, say, 45 million ... All the others too poor to bother.

So guess who gets to benefit from tax cuts?

(1) Rural parts vs The Big Smoke (2) 95% of the service providers' customers have no interest in anything outside Thailand & in any case no non-Thai/Khmer/Lao language skills.

47 minutes ago, BMW Overlander said:

With riches like that, instead of enjoying golden years of his life with friends and family, he pursues politics....for the sake of power and ego.

So what do other rich people do in their old age? (eg The Walmart king). My perception - but what would I know? - is that they keep doing the things they've done all their lives, stoking the fires of wealth & ego.

Charles to HM: Don't worry, Mumsie, we can plant trees along the border.

2 hours ago, Henryford said:

I have just done a transfer into my Bangkok Bank using TW. Can confirm that they no longer use the FTT prefix, so using BB is useless for immigration purposes. I will close mine.

So you're saying that BKK Bank no longer uses the FTT tag for ANY transfer of funds from overseas? whether via TW or another bank?

People get the governments they vote for. Most federal governments in Oz do some good things, some stupid, some arguably poor ... In ScoMo's case The People made the sensible decision that he & his were preferable to Little Billy & his slightly more than less Socialist Left.

3 hours ago, wgdanson said:

Same as you, 18 FTT transfers and this last one SMT. But please, why would your option 2 be any good as Immigration will not accept a SMT transfer. And I assume you mean use that method IF your first TWise comes in as an SMT. Then you would have TWO SMTs!

You may be right, or maybe not. Before I started using TW late last year, apart from using an atm with my Citibank debit card for weekly cash as required, I was transferring larger amounts when needed bank-to-bank &, as far as I can tell from my bank books (BKK Bank), they ALL showed as FTT. And these were, as far as I can recall, transfers from Citibank to BKKBk. [When I was still young'nwinsome 4 or 5 years ago & building our house here in Surin, I was transferring very large monies from NAB to BKKBk & that was just highway robbery.] So is the Citibank method not SMART? how does it differ (apart from having excellent xrate & no fees)? This I am yet to discover - will be doing a Citibank/BKKBk transfer in the next couple of weeks after I do a TW one on 22 July.

Will report back.

An option in all of this for those capable of doing a little planning would be (1) do the monthly TW transfer on or around your set date, with suitable tagging & followup phone call, and (2) keep funds for a second Smart bank-to-bank transfer at the ready in case of need after checking your bank book.

In my case at least, that's on the basis that the last 7 out of 8 transfers have showed up in BKK Bank account as FTT, so (2) would be the exception not the rule.

I don't think ScoMo's a hypocrite. That would mean he's only pretending to be a pentecostal Christian. But he isn't pretending. He really is one, good or bad or indifferent as that may be.

He also says: Don't worry about the process. Judge me and my government on the outcomes.

Which seems fair enough to anyone half sane.

I ring the Oz office each month for transfer of funds from Oz, immediately after setting up the transfer. Has worked fine so far (but my July transfer is still 2 weeks away ...).

International phonecalls from Thailand are cheap. Each service provider has a different number. I use AIS - 00500 + country no. + callee no.

He has a tough job ahead of him. Almost as difficult as running the DisUK.

And no understanding of the contradictions inherent in this latest hubba dub dub.

If their aim is to "use technology to enhance production efficiency", achieving this will involve not just widespread unemployment [to replace the current widespread underemployment], but also at least 25 stages largely incompatible with the small-scale & local "eco-friendly agriculture" they also claim to want.

10 minutes ago, pontious said:

They will try but cannot guarantee it will always work. Email received yesterday.

Yes, TW in Oz told me that they have my account tagged to pay my monthly transfer direct to BKK Bank but I should ring them each time as well, as soon as I book the next transfer. (Cheap phone rates are available from Thailand - AIS, which I use, is just 00500 + local number)

37 minutes ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

 

It all depends on the particular Immigration office you're dealing with, and how they do or don't enforce such matters.

Early on in our experience with Kap Choeng office (say, 3 years ago), we asked - after one of our returns from BKK & while doing a 90-day report: Should we report to you here each time after we return from BKK or anywhere else outside Surin? They laughed & said: Why would you want to do that?

Never mentioned since.