since2003

They moved to Phuket about 10 years ago.

https://www.phuket-simoncabaret.com/

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Phuket+Simon+Cabaret

https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g297931-d1479765-Reviews-Phuket_Simon_Cabaret-Kathu_Phuket.html

3 hours ago, cusanus said:

The income statements are good enough until next year, then it's unclear what they will accept. If you earn money in your home country, you normally pay taxes to your home country regardless of where you live. There is no double taxation per treaty. The embassy letters are going out mostly as a result of lack of respect from farangs, so it seems, anyway.  Elections may bring about more clarity (or less). Hope my next extension is a good experience.   

Norway has a bilateral tax treaty with Thailand - and living in Thailand for me for more than 180 days a year has tax consequences. I will not go into that further here, it's not really relevant to this thread.

It's the embassies of Denmark, Australia, the UK and the US that "showed a lack of respect" (or "stood up to", depending on your perspective!) to Thailand and Thai Immigration by refusing to guarantee that their income letters are 100% accurate. Individual farangs and their behavior at Thai Immigration had very little to do with this.

In my opinion the income letters of the US embassy and consulates are the main reason why Thai Immigration are provoked - and why they contacted many foreign embassies starting in February of this year. That any American can just swear on his/her honor that their income is whatever they say it is - and then get this statement written down and stamped & notarized by the US embassy/consulate is an insult not only to Thai Immigration, but to all other farangs not from the USA as well. Probably not a popular opinion with Americans, but so what? They may have brought down the entire income letter system, for everyone. Because it's possible that in 2019 Thai Immigration will not accept embassy income letters from any nation because of this...

3 hours ago, cusanus said:

The income statements are good enough until next year, then it's unclear what they will accept. If you earn money in your home country, you normally pay taxes to your home country regardless of where you live. There is no double taxation per treaty. The embassy letters are going out mostly as a result of lack of respect from farangs, so it seems, anyway.  Elections may bring about more clarity (or less). Hope my next extension is a good experience.   

Norway has a bilateral tax treaty with Thailand - and living in Thailand for me for more than 180 days a year has tax consequences. I will not go into that further here, it's not really relevant to this thread.

It's the embassies of Denmark, Australia, the UK and the US that "showed a lack of respect" (or "stood up to", depending on your perspective!) to Thailand and Thai Immigration by refusing to guarantee that their income letters are 100% accurate. Individual farangs and their behavior at Thai Immigration had very little to do with this.

In my opinion the income letters of the US embassy and consulates are the main reason why Thai Immigration are provoked - and why they contacted many foreign embassies starting in February of this year. That any American can just swear on his/her honor that their income is whatever they say it is - and then get this statement written down and stamped & notarized by the US embassy/consulate is an insult not only to Thai Immigration, but to all other farangs not from the USA as well. Probably not a popular opinion with Americans, but so what? They may have brought down the entire income letter system, for everyone. Because it's possible that in 2019 Thai Immigration will not accept embassy income letters from any nation because of this...

I went to CM Immigration today to get a 1-year extension based on marriage and on income. I had with me all the usual papers I have used in the last 10 years PLUS a print-out from my bank in Norway via internet banking showing my pension-income for the last 12 months. I also printed out a complete bank statement for the month of November (I was shown this last week by an Immigration Officer as an example - when I didn't know I had to have statements from my farang bank).

Today I asked the IO if she wanted both or just one of the statments. She wanted both - but I had the impression she wasn't 100% sure and took both to be sure. I also had a statement from my Thai bank showing just one month (November). I didn't include this in the application. I waited for the IO to ask for it, but she never did.

The IO also did not use the information from the bank statements. She took my embassy income letter and used the numbers from it. I was a little surprised by this, because the numbers to NOT match - because the income attested to in my embassy letter is my income before taxes, and the numbers on my Norwegian bank statements represent my income after taxes are paid to Norway.

I pay tax only to Norway and not to Thailand because I only live in Thailand for about 177-178 days a year. I didn't say anything to the IO - perhaps I should have... and perhaps I will get a call from Immigration about this in the weeks ahead. But I must say that both my gross and net monthly income is way above 40K baht, so I should be safe, I hope.

I asked the IO officer whether I had to have both the embassy income letter and the bank statements - or if I could get a visa with only bank statements. She answered that I needed both. If I didn't have the embassy income letter, then she said I would have to show 400K in the bank for 3 months.

I arrived at CM Immigration at 1230 and got a queue ticket (they work through lunch now). At 1500 I was called to the desk of the IO. I had 42 pages of documents and forms plus the usual 20 photos for Immigration to choose 2 from. The wife and I had signed all the documents - but I had to sign all of them a second time after they were stamped with a big stamp. The IO chatted a little with the wife and the IO also had to fill even more forms that me and the wife had to sign. The whole thing to about 20 minutes.

Then I had to sit down and wait again - for 40 more minutes. Before I could pick up my passport with the stamps in it I had to take a photo and sign two more forms for a temporary visa until my 1-year extension is approved by Immigration headquarters in Bankok. I was out the door with my passport at 1540, 3 hours and 10 minutes after arriving.

I like the new queue system - it is now possible to arrive around lunch-time and still get the business done! Every year since 2009 I have been at CM Immigration at 0500-0600 in the morning. Once I was there at 0400. I have never used an agent or paid line sitters. So the situation is better now. Much better!! ...except for the uncertainties around income verification this year. It really pisses me off when Immigration changes their document-requirements without informing their customers in any way - at least I didn't see it posted at their official website or anywhere else.

7 hours ago, M71 said:

Thanks everyone for your thoughts - we sold about 0.5 kg of gold jewelry and the store buying price was around 800 baht less than the daily selling price.

 

Checked all the Worowat market stores and ended up selling to one of the gold shops in Lotus department store - same price as Worowat would give us.

 

Interesting that one place told us they would give 1800 baht less per baht weight than the selling price as it was 'old gold' :-)

 

Seller beware.

0.5 kg gold = 500 grams = ca 33 baht-weight = ca 640,000 baht (19,400 baht pr baht weight)

So your wife looked a little bit like Mr. T -- with 640,000 baht with of gold around her neck, before you sold it all. LOL!

17 hours ago, observer90210 said:

Hope they have good insurance coverage for flooding in their homes !!

I used to have a fire insurance for my home in Chiang Mai that also covered flooding. In 2012, one year after the big flood of 2011, I got a letter from the insurance company that stated that from now on my policy with them only covered fire, not flooding. The price of the policy remained the same, though.