StevieAus

If you have lived here as an adult you would probably be aware that every office often has different procedures.

Can you not get someone here to contact the office or obtain the telephone number and call them yourself.

11 hours ago, Snig27 said:

555, you really couldn't make up this dystopian drivel if you tried. The supremely corrupt junta drums out a token corrupt cop now and then from the absolutely broken cabal (yes, mafia cabal) that is the RTP. 

I have a friend who is involved in international drug trade detection processes, part of Interpol. He advises police and customs forces worldwide and says Thailand is the only country in the world that shows complete disinterest in what he does and where the police actively and openly, without fear of retribution, interfere in the detection processes. This goes to the top. Discussions with Prayut's government at the highest levels have met similar total disinterest. They are all rotten to the core. 

I find it hard to believe that Thailand is the only country that shows disinterest.

I would be interested to know what response he gets from Myanmar, where the Shan State army are supposedly involved in the manufacture of Met-amphetamines most of which seems to be trafficked here. 

11 hours ago, rumak said:

that is the answer i always give !    GO to the office ( immig, land,  tessabahn,  amphur, dmv,  water, electric)     etc etc   and ask in person.    I speak thai so always go to an officer to get an answer to an important question 

try to have relevant documents with you and ask SPECIFICALLY   what your concern is ,   and just be calm and collected;

NOTE:   having the wife or gf do the asking may not have the same results ( as often they do not want to seem to be pushy .... or can not ask a follow up question if there is confusion.)

Probably the best advice I have read today, ask at the office you deal with.

I don’t have a girl friend but my wife in the past  has been excellent at translating the questions.

You need to train them well !!!

5 minutes ago, Orinoco said:

Live now pay latter is pretty dumb.

where ever you come from.

 

I agree it is but that’s the way of the world,  it runs on credit businesses, governments etc etc 

2 hours ago, Orinoco said:

Earn it before you spend it.

Nah, it's just not the Thai way.

Big face,  is more important to them.

 

 

It’s no different in most Western countries the concept of live and spend now and pay later ( or not pay ) has been around for more years than I can remember.

Credit in the West particularly with credit cards has been so easy to obtain that people are sucked in.

When I lived in Australia I regularly received

offers of a new  credit card with a guaranteed large credit limit.

My own bank used to automatically increase my credit limit every year which I then had to decline.

I paid my balance in full every month so no interest was paid.o

3 hours ago, brobro2424 said:

If you are living full time in Thailand, you become uk-non-resident the moment you left UK. It is none of the UK's business where you are. Generally speaking if you don't live there and aren't using their government services, you should not be paying tax there.

 

Apply for an NT tax code via https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/income-tax-leaving-the-uk-getting-your-tax-right-p85

 

From what I've seen you will only successfully get a Thai tax code if you are actually going to start paying tax in Thailand. There is no need to do this. Thailand is not trying to tax foreigners on money coming from outside Thailand (in general).

 

I'm sure you will want more proof than just the above, but I'm trying to point you in the right direction. Its a grey area I've spent many hours looking into and have discussed with 5 or 6 international tax advisors, albeit not specifically pension-related. I'd be interested in replies to the contrary.

If you have a bank account with funds in Thailand presumably you will receive interest minuscule as it may be.

Obtaining a tax number is very easy allowing you then to claim it back.

Personally I don’t bother. know of others who do this.

17 hours ago, MrJ2U said:

 Sorry to hear about your daughters struggle.  Hard on the parents for sure also. 

 

Our daughter 8 had one childs Pfeizer vaccine then got COVID.  Bad fever and cough.  Finally got her second vaccine two months ago.

 

Theres a lot of reluctance to get a boosters here in my parts of Issan, Unfortunately.  I'm in Sakon Nakhon near the border of Beung Khan.

 

 

Thanks for your comment the good thing is kids soon bounce back and she was treated in Chiang Mai Ram an excellent private hospital where she was born.

We always take her there if a problem sees the same pediatrician who is brilliant.

Has since had her first shot of Pfizer and due the booster end of August no side effects except doesn’t like needles.

We live in the North of Chiang Mai Province and she got hers shot at one of the local hospitals it was full of kids good to see

We are certainly not anti vaccination but there seemed to be mixed advice on the minimum age so we waited until she was six.

I suppose now she like my wife will have the

anti bodies as well hopefully as will your daughter.

33 minutes ago, MrJ2U said:

She's alive and didn't need a respirator or a hospital stay.

 

Looks like it worked for everyone.

 

Good! 

They are both ok but our daughter now six and was unvaccinated spent two nights in hospital due to high temperature and vommiting.

I had two AZ which were free and two Moderna only the first was paid for.

At 72 still alive and kicking no major side effects.

Also a couple of months ago my wife and young daughter both contracted Covid, I didn’t 

She had received 2 Sinopharm and one Moderna, considering we all live in the same house and my wife and I share the same bed, maybe mine worked.

My daughter holds Thai, Australian and UK citizenship and passports.The UK authorities know because last time her UK passport was renewed we had to send copies of every page of the other two.

On 7/19/2022 at 11:03 AM, rtco said:

I'm 72 and go for 2 swims (1 x one hour and 1 x half hour) every day + some strength exercises as well (pull-ups, sit-ups, press-ups etc) so I'd better watch out hadn't I

Perhaps you should, never know when the grim reaper is lurking around the corner!

1 hour ago, Phil1975 said:

Regular jogger so likely fit and healthy who always runs the same route just happened to dive over a guard rail and then drown in knee height water?! <deleted>. 

You should watch some of the UK hospital programs, you might be surprised how many so called healthy and fit people, particularly in that age group collapse suddenly when exercising and often die.

The only Department that seems to have got their act together is the Department that issues passports, whatever they want you to produce is scanned into their system, the same applied with the now defunct Thailand Pass all done on line, I think it it is the same Department

However it is not only Thailand, my daughter holds three passports. When we renewed her UK passport we we had to produce copies of every page of the other two even though they were blank.

7 minutes ago, Bangkok Barry said:

Perfectly normal in Thailand, where someone comes up with an idea and shoots their mouth off without ever thinking the idea through. And typical Thai arrogance in believing that every airline that flies to the country will do as ordered by the government and spend their time processing and transmitting passenger info while in-flight. They have found resistance from the airlines - what a surprise. I'm waiting now for a government minister to threaten to ban any airline that doesn't comply. There's bound to be one, who hasn't thought through what that would mean to tourist numbers.

Remember the proposal a few years ago that all incoming tourists would be issued with a SIM card on arrival, so they could be tracked?

another well thought out scheme that disappeared into the ether. 

Flying is a means of getting to a place quickly and far safer than by road in any country, as statistics show.

Try flying Business Class then perhaps you might enjoy the experience.

7 hours ago, madmitch said:

The headline bears no correlation to the narrative whatsoever.

If he added the words “ on costs “ after the word “ saving” it would have been better but made sense to me.

12 hours ago, sanuk711 said:

Lets us know how that works out--- I am also woeful at doing things, my UK passport ran out 6 months ago (I have 2 others) & I have been meaning to contact him.

We have used them in the past to renew our daughters UK passport.

The service is excellent.p

12 hours ago, Purdey said:

No mention of permanent residents, who do not need to transfer money from abroad.

Readers may be interested to look into usafruct agreements if you have a Thai spouse. I read abou it on this site many years ago. Buy in his/her name, sign an usufruct agreement and have full rights to live in and use the property for the rest of your life. More reasonable, I think.

That’s what I did years ago with our home and adjoining land plus our motel and apartments.

Once I depart this world I will have no need for them as I wouldn’t if I lived in Australia or elsewhere.

On 7/12/2022 at 4:51 PM, billsmart said:

I've discovered it's UK slang for "crooked" or "corrupt." I'm from the USA and never heard "bent" used in that way before. I've heard "bent" used as "determined," such as "he was bent on doing something," but never as a synonym for "corrupt."

In the  UK and Australia the term “ bent” when referring to police or even others usually suggests they are corrupt.

On 7/11/2022 at 10:08 PM, dddave said:

Does Thailand have anything like the magistrate system for arraignments and bail setting?

I don’t believe they have magistrates in Thailand.

12 hours ago, Misterwhisper said:

Hmmm.... I was always under the impression that only a judge could grant bail, but not individual police stations. One learns something new every day.

 

From an earlier report:

"Relatives of the tourist policeman turned up with 200,000 baht money to bail him out but this was denied."

 

Looks like the earlier offered bail amount of 200,000 wasn't enough for Bang Yai police, so it had to be "re-negotiated" to a cool million per suspect. As always, money talks.

 

I wonder how much of these 2 million will actually go into state coffers. 

Police can release persons on bail in the UK and Australia

4 hours ago, hotchilli said:

One murder, two attempted murder charges... nothing less to stop this carnage.

Those charges wouldn’t even happen in a Western Country.

Only a charge with a similar penalty to manslaughter and even then they don’t always go to jail.

5 hours ago, aussiexpat said:

This is what I dont understand, people are apparently too poor to put 800k baht in a bank account but are happy to pay 30-40k baht to do something they could easily do themselves for free

 

I'd rather spend the 30-40k baht on me (or my latest gf)

 

You might be surprised to learn that there are people particularly those on low pension amounts particularly when they are not indexed, as happens with UK state pensions  that cannot raise the 800k.

I know of two such people using agents and who seem to survive

”on the smell of an oily rag” but claim that they are better off than if in their home countries.