Lacessit

I would suggest 10,000 litres of water storage is inadequate, IME 20,000 litres is a bare minimum. Many Thais shower twice a day. My son in Australia installed a 70,000 litre tank, he has never run out of water in 15 years.

I've found Google to be wrong on matters of fact on a couple of occasions. It's a useful tool when searching for services, locations etc. As far as posters on this forum go, there are those who post on the basis of facts and peer-reviewed data, and those that post on the basis of their beliefs. Science does not care what you believe.

Apps such as Zoom, Meet and Line were a boon during COVID. I revised my Australian will with a lawyer sitting at her home desk in Australia, from my condo in Thailand. Horses for courses, obviously it's a bit different integrating a manufacturing division with marketing etc. Having said that, the times they are a'changing.

So they do. However, I was making the point with fewer full-time jobs around, it is highly like the pool of permanently unemployed people will grow, because the casuals who pay tax may be getting less than if they were on the dole. COVID has brought about a change in attitude to work among the Millennials. Many worked from home, and found it was a lot easier than being in rush hour traffic or crowded public transport for several hours every day. They are saying to employers if I can't work from home, I am not interested in working for you.

Clean table/low bed and pillow linen, clean shirt and pants to change into. Certificates on the wall are usually a plus. I don't go back to any shop where they won't back off on their massage, when I tell them I want gentler manipulation. I tend to prefer women in their fifties and sixties as more experienced. The young ones are often just trying to sell sex, and their massage skills are usually inversely correlated to their beauty. Male masseurs working in temple precincts usually know what they are doing. I play music on my phone to Bluetooth earbuds during the massage, external chatter does not bother me.

There are about 200,000 Westerners in Thailand. The Thai population is approximately 72 million, with about 15,000 road deaths in 2022. At that rate, attrition would have seen most of us off, if we were worse drivers. We are way down the list - Canada, UK, USA, Australia, France etc. when it comes to road deaths per 100,000 population. https://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/cause-of-death/road-traffic-accidents/by-country/ No doubt some of us abandon sensible driving and copy Thai methods. IMO that's a minority.

https://knightlawgroup.com/ford-ranger-10speed-transmission-problems/

Agree.

Agree, my pension is assessed on deemed income.

Centrelink assesses either assets or income, your Comsuper probably is counted as income. I'm not getting into a debate on what is fair, I am content with my part pension. It would not even be needed if ASIC and the ACCC had not been asleep at the wheel before and during the GFC, I would be self-funding. What's unfair? In my book, lying incompetent toads such as Tudge, Morrison and Robert getting fat parliamentary pensions after wrecking the lives of so many people.

I have been following the Robodebt saga reasonably closely. IMO some of the people involved should be getting jail time, not that there is any hope of that.

A single person who rents can have just over half a million in assets, and still get the full age pension. Not much in Australia, more than enough in Thailand.

True. Having said that, I would suggest that cohort of people is a small minority, although it may get larger with the creeping casualization of work.

I am not aware of any age pensioner, dependent on that alone, who fronted the Royal Commission to describe their travails under Robodebt. The system was based on a faulty income averaging algorithm which targeted people on income SUPPORT, who were earning income on a part-time or casual basis. Apparently younger people on Jobseeker were particularly vulnerable to the Liberal dole bludging ideology, and returned the favor at the last election. Age pensioners who are not working were never in the Robodebt crosshairs. IMO you are confusing income support with a pension. Income support is intended to assist people who would otherwise be destitute, as part of a social contract. The age pension is an entitlement paid to people who have shelled out taxes all their working lives, and get part of those taxes returned in money which has depreciated in purchasing power. The Brits take that one step further by freezing pensions of anyone deemed to be residing overseas, no cost of living indexation. Robodebt was war on the vulnerable and the young, not even Morrison was stupid enough to go after the seniors.

This post reminds me of a pyromaniac setting a house on fire, then telling the owner to call the fire brigade.

My argument with another poster has been about what is high and low-hanging fruit. I rest my case. Logic tells me the sole 183 day rule ( assuming it ever gets up with a Labor government ) would also follow the timeline of the next Federal election, two and a half years away. Given the Boomer population bulge, IMO unlikely. Don't mess with the pensioner vote is Politics 101. Can you imagine the teal independents and Greens won't be supporting the Treasurer's comments? I am enjoying the spectacle of the Liberals being reduced to a wailing anachronism.

Exactly. Is the tax free threshold removed when someone is classed as non-resident? If so, then the pension is taxed, without regard to any income thresholds.

Well, one shoe has dropped. A long overdue reform. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-02-28/jim-chalmers-superannuation-tax-changes-three-million-cap/102032156

The big question is whether Australia will (AFAIK) become the first nation in the world to tax government pensions. A pension is not earnings. I have always paid whatever taxes I owed on earnings, either via PAYE, or FY assessment of investment income/capital gains. The aggravation arises from endless negativity. Permit me to doubt I am alone in that perception.

" I asked you to put a figure forward, and no reply". Perhaps you have forgotten I posted a figure of 90,000 in response to your 200,000 claim. True, I have racked up nearly 19,000 posts. Having said that, I can't recall any thread where I have made more than 250 posts, which IMO is monomania. I think I can reasonably claim quite a few of my posts are intended to help other people, not instil fear in them. I have also had two death threats on the ASEAN/Thai Visa forum. In the light of that, casting yourself as a victim of a smear campaign is not going to get any traction with me. Let me suggest you do something positive, such as sharing the strategies in more detail you have discussed with your accountant.

Casting yourself as the victim isn't going to get you much sympathy, given your track record of negative postings on something that has not happened, and may never do so, in the entirety of what you are postulating. Putting forward figures which are subsequently demonstrated to be substantially incorrect is not going to gain you much credibility either. I would suggest anyone who makes 255 and counting posts, preaching to the seriously unconverted, has significant OCD issues. "This has been discussed at an appointment with my accountant on this visit back to Australia, and some strategies discussed. Until the laws are passed, and the devil in the detail is known, it's continue on as normal." You have stated you don't get a pension. However, it does seem from the above statement the proposed change will affect you, and like everyone else, you will be looking for ways to circumvent it. Would it make you envious if said change had thresholds and exemptions not available to you, for those on pensions?

You state you are a self-funded retiree. AFAIK you don't state your nationality, or your location. Why are you so interested in an age pension you don't get? Is your lifestyle funded from an SMSF, and threatened by removal of the generous tax concessions? Misery loves company? Figures of 200,000 pensioners and $5.3 billion seem pretty exact to me. As does your prediction the proposed changes will take place without modifications such as thresholds or grandfathering.

You've posted a figure of 200,000 pensioners living abroad, in your calculations. $5.3 billion in pensions going overseas. Your figure of 200,000 assumes all of those pensioners get the full pension, many are on part pensions. As I am. It also assumes none of those pensioners ever return to Australia, as I have recently for a indeterminate period. Ignoring those deficiencies in logic, the real figure of pensioners living overseas is approximately 90,000. A 2016 figure, I doubt it has increased significantly since then. Quote: "According to the Federal Department of Social Services, there are estimated to be about 90,000 Australians who live overseas whilst still receiving their Age Pension entitlements." $5.3 billion X 90,000/ 200,000 X 0.32 = $760 million, a long way short of the billions you were claiming in a previous post. Even less counting the cost of administration, and the other variables I have mentioned. There are 12,000 Australians with super balances of more than $5 million. That's $60 billion of funds getting tax concessions way over what they need for a comfortable retirement. No wonder the Treasurer is salivating. I guess when you're in a hole, you won't be able to resist keeping on digging.

I would need a scanning electron microscope to read that closely.

Please educate me on the humor present in your Chicken Little chunterings.