grs90

Regrettably I think that combining allowances & tax bands, other than the 190K aged 65/disabled allowance which looks like it can be claimed twice, is not possible. I thought this was looking too good to be true and have since added a new document to my reading list. This is from the Thai Revenue Department at. https://www.rd.go.th/fileadmin/download/english_form/030265guide91.pdf The last page of the document, page 16, gives an example of the tax filing for a married man who has a wife with no income. This would seem to suggest that only one lot of TEDA 150,000baht is tax free. And also suggests that the subsequent tax bands can not be combined either. So my brief optimism has evaporated! Agree with your approach of keeping your head down and will be doing the same. Thanks anyway for the replies to my questions. It was nice to have a ray of hope for a while! Cheers

Again, thanks for the reply. So following that logic each of the tax bands should be treated the same way? Wife I and I would both get 150K TAX FREE, we would both get the next band of 5% tax etc. That makes a huge difference to my calculations where previously I'd assumed, as I was the only one actually remitting the money, there would only be a single set of the various tax bands applicable to my remittances. As Chief Brody would have said, we're gonna need a bigger spreadsheet!

Great and useful post thanks. But could you just clarify why you are using (e) 0-150,000 twice in the example above please? I am assuming that it's because both of the married couple are making remittance from abroad in to Thailand? So if all the income was being remitted by one partner then the only tax benefit from being married is from (b) above, Is that correct or am I missing something? Thanks

Thanks for the helpful advice. Will ask for two new circuits to be added to the consumer unit. And, having concluded that @steven100 was right, will visit the 20 baht shop to procure a bucket in case the family visit again.😇 Cheers all

Next time? There won't be a next time if I can help it. I hate it when anyone comes to stay due to my unsociable nature. Nice people but they do take liberties such as drinking all my beer and just helping themselves to anything in the fridge or cupboard. Not really a problem though as they have got nothing of their own and I don't begrudge them taking the piss a bit. A bit like me really when staying at a hotel with free toiletries and an executive lounge!! By the way, did you have any advice about the electrical issue or were you just virtue signalling?

It seems that problems with the quality of electrical work here are quite common. I've certainly encountered problems before and have a new issue now. So am looking for some advice on how to proceed. Last week, despite all my efforts to avoid it, the wife had family over to stay for a couple of nights. They certainly enjoyed their visit and using the air conditioning in their bedroom, running it at full power and at the lowest temperature possible. They also enjoyed using the shower in the guest bedroom. The problem it gave me though was that the circuit breaker for the lights kept tripping while they were doing it. Subsequent checking revealed that the pump for the water tank (Mitsubishi 205watt) seems to be have been connected up to the lighting circuit. I don't know if it is connected to the circuit in the consumer unit or if it has just been cut in to a handy wire in the roof space. The pump was installed 4 years ago and we've had no known problem since then. The pump has it's own 20amp circuit breaker whilst the lighting circuit has a 10amp breaker in a separate box near the pump. The checking also revealed that the air conditioning in the bedroom is also connected to the lighting circuit. This is an about 14000BTU Hitachi Inverter model and was moved to the bedroom last year when we had a new unit fitted in the main living room. This work was done by the installers who fitted the new unit. They were provided by a well known electrical store that is common in centrally located malls and I thought they would be properly qualified to do the work. As with the pump, I have no idea what has happened up in the roof space as I don't want to go up there. So, yesterday we got the air conditioning installer boss back for a look see. Unfortunately this did not go well due to my wife telling him "You do wrong. You do wrong" very loudly, almost before he got out of the car. He just checked that the air conditioning worked and said "No Problem". When I turned the pump and some lights on to show him the problem his advice was, quite logically in a way, "Not use same time then no problem". I tried, via the wife translating, to tell him I wanted the air conditioning off the lighting circuit and connected to something else. He agreed to come back and change things if we paid for it. But, he says, I have to tell him exactly what I want him to do. The problem is that I don't know exactly what to tell him to do and I don't want to make thins worse than they already are. We will look for another "electrician" as I have lost confidence in this one. But I would like to know what to tell them to do, and that is where I would appreciate advice. We have two breakers for air conditioning in the consumer unit, both rated at 35 amps. One has got a 12000BTU unit on it and the other a 21000BTU. Is it safe to get the 14000BTU unit connected to the same breaker as the 12000BTU unit? If not, what does need to happen? Also, what about the pump? Does it need to be connected to something other than the lighting circuit, given it doesn't draw that much power? Thanks in advance for any help.

They are varifocal.

CARTER USM.

Recently had the same issue. Got fed up using two pairs of glasses all the time. I went to Owndays opticians and they had a range of different varifocal lenses. Ended up paying about 7000 baht including frame and , after a couple of weeks getting used to them, am happy with the quality and performance. I would recommend you having a look at Owndays.

No, but I get your point. Not quite sure where the last 20 years went!! Don’t think I can edit the post now.

What an epic topic! I have read through nearly all the posts in this thread although still a few pages to go. Some great information and some hilarious exchanges. A fairly recent one though, about the availability of “Fast Charges” is reminiscent of my junior school years. “There aren’t many fast chargers” “Yes there are” “Oh no there aren’t” “Look at the map - there are Loads” “Liar, liar, pants on fire” Come on gentleman, surely you are better than this? If it was the kids having the argument you would tell them to grow up. As an unbiased observer it seems a “fast charger” is one that uses DC other than AC to charge the vehicle. If it is DC it is classed as a fast charger. However, a fast charger does not necessarily mean a quick charger in terms of time taken to charge. So you are both correct and it is just an issue over the terminology. Anyway, on on to my post. I nearly bought a new EV but didn’t. This is why. In late 2023 I was in the market for a new car. Budget was around 800K baht but in the end went slightly over that by buying a Toyota Yaris Cross.. Four months in I am very happy with the car. Drives well, handles well and meets our requirements perfectly. Also it is very economical returning an average of 24.4km per litre. I appreciate though that this is more than a BEV costs to run. I also have some regrets when I think about the performance difference between the car I bought and the EVs I tested. I was really close to going for a BEV. I read all the posts in this thread and on others on AN. I also did a lot of research on other sites. I test drove 3 BEVs and loved the experience. Way superior to the traditional cars in terms of acceleration and also handling which, I think, was probably due to a lower centre of gravity. Ultimately though, I decided against a pure electric model and this was due to the following main issues. 1. Convenience of charging when on a longer trip. We mainly drive locally as I think most people probably do. It would be relatively simple to install a charger in the carport and nearly all our charging would be done at home. So an EV would be fine for 90%+ of the time. We do a longer (600-1000km) trip several times a year so it is not that often that we would need to charge away from home. When I thought about this, based in particular on posts from KhunLA to whom I give thanks for the information, It was clear that there were plenty of opportunities to charge up the vehicle, in a reasonable time, when on a longer journey. So no particular “range anxiety”. I avoid travelling at busier times as I dislike crowds roads. Based on my observations I have never seen a queue for a charger at PTT stations where we normally stop. So no worries about waiting to use a charger. My main issue was over the timing of when to do a longer stop to charge up the car. On a longer trip I typically have a pee/smoke stop every hour or so and these take less than 5 minutes. I will also typically have one approx 30 minute stop to have some food. However, these are normally quite soon after leaving home when I stop for breakfast, or when I am nearly at my destination when I stop for lunch to avoid arriving at the hotel too early for check-in. I didn’t want the longer stop to be done when the car wanted to eat rather than when I wanted to. Ultimately this is a convenience issue, I could manage the charging very easily within a reasonable period of time. I just can’t be bothered to. 2. Resale value. This is a complete unknown. I would expect to keep any new car for 6 or 7 years and, having been scalped previously when trying to sell a car with manual transmission which hardly anyone wanted, I was somewhat worried about what a 2003 battery EV would be worth in 2009/2010. I wasn’t worried about the car being unusable as I don’t believe the scare stories about the batteries being useless after several years. At worse the battery may just lose a low percentage of its ability. My main concern was over why anyone would want to buy a 2003 BEV when, I am sure, a 2009/2010 BEV will be far superior in terms of its battery capacity and charging ability. Things in the BEV market still seem to be advancing at a rapid pace so will a 2003 car be effectively obsolete in 6 or 7 years time? 3. Insurance and repair costs. Another big unknown. At the moment this doesn’t seem to be an issue but I’m a bit concerned after reading stories about high repair costs for a BEV and the limited number of people trained and qualified to do any repairs needed. This may, or may not, be an issue going forward. I am at a stage of my life where I hate uncertainty. I don’t have any worries about getting a Toyota insured or repaired. I don’t want to introduce a new “worry” in to my life when there are plenty already. So, overall, there were just enough niggling little issues preventing me buying a BEV. It was a close call though and I am sure the next purchase will be a BEV. For me, now, I want to be able to buy a BEV for around 800K. I want to be able to do a 450 to 500 KM journey without having to charge en-route. I want the 1000baht per night type hotels to have charging points so I can charge overnight on arrival, rather than having to eff around finding a charging location near the hotel or paying for a more expensive hotel which provides charging points as many already do. Will these requirements be met by 2009/2010? I think, probably, yes. So, in conclusion, no EV for me this time. But keep the thread going because next time I am sure there will be!!

As stated above, it is the uncertainty about what the impact will be that is the big problem rather than anything else. As a UK retiree whose sole source of income being brought in to Thailand is from a company pension, it seems what I bring in could be taxed in Thailand. This is despite it already being taxed in the UK. So, unless things are clarified before the end of the year, I am currently thinking how to avoid bringing potentially taxable income in to Thailand during 2024. Currently the annual amount the Thai wife and I spend in Thailand on day to day living is around 1,000,000 baht. There are no planned large purchases next year so I'll aim to stick to that amount for 2024. I can probably bring 600,000 baht of this in to Thailand before the end of 2023 which I think means it will not be impacted by the new directive. I will bring in the other 400,000 in 2 chunks of 200,000. One sent to my bank account and one sent to the wife's account. I believe this will keep us both below the level at which any tax is payable. Then, if it is needed, we can both file Thai tax declarations in early 2025 with no tax to pay. Hopefully things will become clearer, if not by the end of this year then by early 2025!

Not fully working in Korat. Thai websites seem to be working but a bit slow. But can’t connect to anything international

Can you get a rental overseas using a Thai 2 year license? I was previously told (in the UK though not the US) that only the 5 year license could be used as the 2 year one is considered "probationary".

I don't normally get involved with arguments on the internet..............BUT! As I said when I responded to your earlier post I am not complaining. I merely pointed out to another poster who claimed that "locals discount" happened in other countries that, in most other countries, "locals" means people who live locally irrespective of their nationality. In Thailand the dual pricing seems to be based almost entirely on nationality and, from a personal perspective, I think that is wrong. You obviously think it is OK which is fine. You might even be happy if countries in Europe introduced an extra "darkies" fee for visitors but I would oppose that too. I'm absolutely certain that "they" don't read here and I'm also certain that the dual pricing won't change in my lifetime. As I stated previously I do sometimes pay the extra foreigner fee if I want to see the site/attraction on offer.