AlexRich

1 hour ago, AlfHuy said:

Buy some Turkish Lira????

I hope that poster doesn’t see this, as he’ll be thinking that Turkey is the place to be? Or worse, he’ll be planning retirement in Venezuela due to the favourable currency rates.

On 4/4/2021 at 11:12 AM, mrfaroukh said:

Advantages:

1_The exchange rate is better. Almost 50 to a dollar against 31 bhat to a dollar. 

2_ Widely English spoken. 

3_ Cheaper bear

4_ Cheaper entertainment 

5_ You can find a good girl friend who also may be more honest and doesn't demand large amount of money

6_ Used to be easier to get the resident visa (not sure how is it now) 

 

Disadvantage :

1_ Not very safe, lots of crime

2_ Not as developed as Thailand

3_ Being Christian you don't see any open bar like Thailand. Everything is indoor and it is a kind of boring

4_ Cities are not as developed as Thailand

5_ I didn't see much variety of foreign food. 

6_ Hotels and may be condo are not as good Thailand

7_ You can hardly find a city like Pattaya that offer you everything

 

Now choice is yours. I feel you may get more for your money but that would be at the cost of your piece of mind and beauty of the place. 

 

You are presuming that the peso and baht are equivalent? I can get more US dollars than Euros for my British pound, but that doesn’t make the US better value?

42 minutes ago, Trumpetbum said:

My partner asked Jenny how he was and what happened to his channel and she told him they have split up ???? sad, we really like him. She put a big smiley face after it so hopefully she was just joking or it hasn't ended well ????

Thanks for the update. That kind of makes sense, and what I suspected given the radical change in the channel ... name changed and all videos erased.

3 hours ago, dginoob said:

My plan is to put the majority of my available income into index funds or ETF's and just forget about them for around 20 years (or hopefully less). A smaller amount I intend of using on individual stocks - though as I know so little at the moment this is tantamount to gambling for me. It seems like there is so much to learn, and the amount of information available is quite overwhelming. 

I think that is sensible, a fund that tracks the market will outperform 75% of fund managers. If you look at the graphs over 20 years you’ll see downward spikes with various crisis, but the trajectory is upwards over the long term. 
 

If you want a British book that is very good for beginners I would recommend “The Naked Trader” by Robbie Burns. It is simple to read and takes you through the basics, and explains how to buy and sell shares through brokerages. My approach is different from his but his approach is very sensible. So if you dip your toe into share buying you at least follow a sensible path.

2 minutes ago, dginoob said:

So I opened up an account with Interactive Brokers. Their Trader Workstation PC app isn't super user friendly for beginners, but I'm sure I'll figure it all out.

Most disappointing however, is that there doesn't seem to be any GBP denominated index fund or ETF's (I have found a small number but none of them are what I'm looking for). There are plenty of USD funds available, but I am l loading with GBP and I'd 1. prefer not to have to convert to USD every time, and 2. to reduce my FOREX risk.

Not sure if I should just bite the bullet and go with USD ETF's or try to find another solution. Has anyone been in the same predicament?

 

Thanks

 

I don’t use ETF’s, I prefer individual shares, so I can’t help you with that one.

1 hour ago, ThailandFoodExpert said:

I consider people who do not open a FB account as stupid as people who open one with their real name and without a VPN...

forums are dead and now info are on FB, but maybe you do not care to know how the world works now...

 

 

FB forces people into information silos, quite a lot of which is conspiracy nonsense or manipulated and targeted content. Better to get your information from a variety of sources, and check everything you read.

53 minutes ago, partington said:

Ok, without getting obsessed by this, and this will be my last post as it's not that big a deal, where a stock is listed has nothing to do with where it is domiciled, and therefore where the earnings are deemed to arise.

 

Almost all Vanguard ETFs are listed in London on the LSE, and can be purchased through UK stockbrokers, but their earnings are called "foreign" on all tax statements from UK stockbrokers, because they are all domiciled in Ireland.

 

This means if you are resident in the UK you have to pay tax on them, but if you are not resident in the UK you don't, because they are foreign earnings.

 

Rio Tinto Zinc is a multinational which is domiciled in both Australia and the UK simultaneously. I freely admit I have no idea what the tax treatment of these shares involves!

 

 

 

it’s pretty simple. If you are based in the UK, a tax resident, you pay UK tax on all dividends and gains, irrespective of what stock exchange you are buying from, US, UK, Hong Kong, Germany. And irrespective of whether your brokerage is in the UK or outside. Most major countries have double taxation agreements to ensure you don’t end up paying twice. For example, if there is a withholding tax on dividends, which is common in many countries (but not the UK, Singapore, Hong Kong).

The guy who asked the question is based in Thailand, and can no longer add to a UK ISA. I’m not in Thailand currently (2022 as long as Covid over) but am in the same situation, offshore. If your investment assets are offshore (or protected inside a UK ISA wrapper) you can trade shares and avoid capital gains and dividend taxes. I can do this because the country that I am staying in and am therefore a tax resident of does not tax these income and gains. If you are in Singapore, Monaco, Hong Kong and a few other countries this is possible. If you are in Germany then you are subjected to German taxes. In Thailand, you are only subject to these taxes if you bring the income and gains into Thailand during the same tax year they were earned. So the trick if you are in Thailand is to delay any transfers to the next tax year. 
 

That was the point I was making to the guy who asked, to keep him right. 
 

it’s a complex subject so anyone who moves around needs to do extensive homework.

1 hour ago, partington said:

The point is the dividend gains or income from UK company shares held in an offshore brokerage are NOT "earned overseas" in the site of the brokerage, they are earned in the UK , despite where they are held and paid.

 

In just the same way the dividend gains  or income from a Luxembourg company shares held in a UK brokerage are earned in Luxembourg, despite where they are held and paid.

 

I interpreted this statement from above quote as supporting this conclusion:

 

The fact that the broker is overseas doesn't change whether the dividends you earn are from a foreign entity (e.g. Ireland, US, Luxembourg etc) or from a UK entity

Sorry, you’re guessing that is true, but you are wrong. Rio Tinto is listed in London, as is Gem Diamonds, and both generate profits outside the UK, as do many others. My original point, and advice to the guy who asked, is correct. If you are a British citizen permanently resident in Thailand and purchase UK shares through an offshore brokerage, neither the dividends nor the capital gains will be subject to UK tax. It is only subject to Thai tax under limited circumstances, which can be avoided by holding the gains/dividends offshore and only transferring to Thailand in the next or future tax year. 
 

You are free to doubt that this is true, but you’d be wrong to.

Sorry, you’ve lost me? If a UK citizen is non-resident for tax purposes then any gains or income earned overseas is not subject to UK tax. So if I buy UK shares through an offshore account (and comply with the residency rules) any dividends or capital gains are not taxable in the UK. It doesn’t matter that the companies are listed on the London market. I don’t believe that situation is true if you buy UK shares through a UK broker, otherwise there would be no need for offshore brokerages? 
 

So if the guy who asked the question does this he will be okay.

52 minutes ago, OneMoreFarang said:

I understand that fb shows all that information. But what I find difficult to understand why so many people believe all that $#$@. Why? It seems if one person tells us the earth is flat we think that guy is a nutter. But if 100 "friends" like that story then in must be true. Really? How stupid are those people? And don't they watch any news outside of fb?

To answer your question, very stupid, and probably haven’t read a traditional newspaper in years. No one gave a toss about the EU or Scottish nationalism until the rise of smart phones and social media. In the US you have a psyops operation like Qanon being used to garner votes for Trump, and scum like Cambridge Analytica using manipulative propaganda to nudge voting intentions. Culminating in a young guy with a loaded gun being arrested outside Comet pizza in DC on a quest to save children locked in the “basement” being served up to paedophiles. If he had got inside his first problem would be to find a basement it doesn’t have. Social media has made the world angry and mad. 

On 3/26/2021 at 3:10 PM, partington said:

Just need to point out that this is only completely true of dividends/interest from non-UK domiciled investments, which are not taxable at all by the UK.

 

Dividends or interest arising from UK companies or banks,  or from any fund or ETF that is domiciled in the UK, are only completely non-taxable if you do not need to use your personal allowance - currently around £12,570 - to offset other kinds of UK income, such as rent from a UK property.

 

If you have no UK  income other than the UK-arising interest /dividends then this is indeed non- taxable (this is referred to as "disregarded income" by HMRC). 

 

If, though, you also had £12,570 income in the UK from other sources, like rental from a house, you would have to either choose to use your personal allowance to offset  tax on that £12,570, and pay tax on UK-arising dividends/ interest OR not pay tax on UK-arising dividends and interest, and pay tax on the £12,570 other income. 

 

Personal circumstance and the  balance between the exact amounts  of UK-arising dividend/interest  income and other kinds of UK income will determine which choice results in least tax.

 

If the  total of both your UK-arising non-dividend/interest and dividend /interest income is less than £12,570 this is still all offset by using your allowance so the question doesn't arise.

 

This is explained on UK HMRC site here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/non-residents-and-investment-income-hs300-self-assessment-helpsheet/hs300-non-residents-and-investment-income-2017

My suggestion was that he set up a brokerage account outside of the UK, say Luxembourg or Switzerland. The only brokerage account that he can have in the UK that’s tax free is a stocks and shares ISA. The issue with that is that you cannot top it up with £20k every year once you become non resident for tax purposes.  It is effectively frozen, but you can still grow it if you invest successfully. This would have to have been up and running before he leaves the UK.

But if he is based in Thailand and he is using an offshore brokerage to buy UK shares then any gains or dividend income is not subject to UK taxation. The personal allowance in this situation becomes irrelevant. It would only be relevant if he was buying UK shares using a broker situated in the UK. And as I stated, the advice is to set up an offshore brokerage.

Of course any assets based in the UK that generate an income or gain are potentially subject to UK tax, with the exception of a tax sheltered product like an ISA. So if he rents an apartment then tax applies. But I don’t think that this is the case for the OP?

The other thing to add is be careful about visits to the UK. If you return to the UK and stay too long you become resident for tax purposes. And if you return to the UK within 5 tax years then any gains and income earned during your period overseas is liable for tax, unless it’s a contract for employment for at least 12 months. This area is complex so you need to think carefully and seek advice if you are returning to the UK or visiting more than 30 days in a tax year. 

12 hours ago, dginoob said:

Capital gains or dividend income will not be subjected to UK tax, but will it be subject to Thai tax?

No, if you are careful. The Thai tax year runs from 1 Jan until 31 Dec I believe (if I’m wrong someone will post). 
 

The important thing to understand is that if you bring profits from gains or dividend income into Thailand in the same tax year as they were earned, you are technically subject to Thai tax. So a dividend received in September 2020 can be brought into Thailand in January 2021 without incurring a tax liability. If you bring it in December 2020 it’s taxable.

I’m pretty sure that’s correct, but if I’m wrong someone will post. 

On 3/8/2021 at 5:46 AM, Fairynuff said:

Is there an upper limit on the value of a trade?

Depends on the market capitalisation of the company and the level of liquidity (number and volumes of buyers and sellers). You could easily buy £30,000 of shares in Glaxosmithkline on one transaction, but might struggle to buy £1,000 of a small AIM share, and with them the buying margin is likely to be high (difference between buy and sell price). So, it depends.

Great story, and great for him to be doing so well in this new venture. But ... for every early school leaver who did well many more didn’t, so best take your education as far as you can ... no one can take it away from you, and you’ll probably end up better off.

I think there are clearly bubbles ready to burst in areas of the investment universe ... crypto currencies, technology like Tesla, etc. But on the other hand you will find beaten down stocks that are set to benefit from the Covid-19 reopening end game ... travel, leisure, airlines, hotels, etc. The UK market is historically cheap. 
 

I suspect we will see something similar to the dot com bubble, where money flowed out of growth and into value. The difference between the two is historically high. If inflation takes off I would expect financials and commodities to do well. 
 

So whilst I can see bubbles bursting I don’t think we are looking at a crash in every area of the market. 

3 hours ago, McTavish said:

<deleted>. You're as bad as news reporters and their sensationalist fake news headlines.  

 

2012 was far worse.  Recent years have been a huge improvement over that. 

 

Get proactive and put out some spot fires or  move somewhere that's not experiencing a hot dry season.

So CM and rest of Thaioand, has had some bush fire smoke?  Big deal.  At least it's not full of industrial pollutants.  Blue sky today over Mae Hia.

You forgot to mention that Covid-19 is a hoax?