Mike Teavee

2 hours ago, jimn said:

Thanks for your comment Jimmy. However it is my experience that all Thai bank atms always charge 220 baht withdrwal fee on overseas cards.

I believe the Charles Schwab card refunds local ATM fees at the end of each month

1 hour ago, hwaetu Go said:

Thanks to Mike TeaV and Crab for responding with the following (see below). Does this mean then that the monthly income must come into a Thai bank each month ex. to show the equivalent of 65,000 baht over the previous 6 months? I now have a three month non-o visa due Jan 3, for which I believe I can get one or more  extensions. You mentioned getting an "income letter" which has 6 month validity. What is that? The Embassy I herd is not providing that now, correct?

 

So, what does this mean to those who actually have monthly income coming in from income abroad (example rentals (not retirement pension) totaling the monthly 65K baht figure afore necessary? 

To save you reading the previous 111 pages...

• In short, nobody knows for sure yet
• Both the British & US Embassies have said that you'll be able to use proof of deposits into a Thai Bank account, the source & frequency requirements for these are not known yet
• Both Embassies will issue Certificate of Income up to the end of the year (For British Embassy you need to get your request in by 12th December) & Thai Immigration have said they will accept them up to 6 months after issue date.

So if you're planning on using the income method & your renewal is due before the end of July (Mid August in some places) it would be prudent to get your Income letter this year (obviously being mindful of the 6 month validity period, don't get it now if you're renewal is due after 1st June) otherwise make whatever contingency plans you feel are appropriate for you to mitigate against the risk of not being able to use proof of income.

 

Or just ignore it & deal with things when the time comes... 

 

How were you planning on extending?

If you plan on using the income method then certificates are still available to the end of the year, assuming you're from the US you'll need to make an appointment online then go in to complete a Statutory Declaration form on which you'll provide details of your income which the US Embassy won't verify (they only verify your identity & attest that you were the person signing the form) but I would strongly advise you only include income that you can prove on there in case Immigration want to see the supporting documents.

British Embassy is done via email & Australian Embassy is same as the US.

You can extend your visa (technically you're extending your permission to stay) 30 (45 in some places) days before it's due so I would recommend getting the Income Certificate over the next few weeks then extending early December (End date of the Extension will still be 3rd January 2020 whether you extend 3rd of December or 3rd January but you want to give yourself some breathing space in case you need additional documents)

4 minutes ago, Maestro said:

For me, profit from the sale of investment securities (shares, fund certificates, etc) is money earned; it is income. Whether or not this type of income needs to be declared as income in the annual tax return depends on the law of the land.

Have to confess I've never looked at it like that, but my thinking is probably clouded from the UK system where any Capital Gains is distinct from Income [very important for people who are Non-UK Resident for Tax purposes as they don't pay Capital Gains tax, as the BM who started this thread fork also stated that he didn't].

Anyway, per post above, it's irrelevant... I accept was mistaken when it comes to the US (& we are in a US thread ????) so let's move on ????

3 minutes ago, mogandave said:

 

As I understand it (at least in the the US) capital gains are taxed as income, just at a different rate.

They have to be included as income on a US tax return, yes?

 

You may well be right for the purpose of US Tax Returns, but as the name implies Capital Gains is a one-time profit that you make on selling an Asset.  Once sold, you no longer own that Asset so it cannot provide you with an income so how could it be used to prove your income?

it's irrelevant for this topic anyway as the US Embassy doesn't care (and certainly won't after 31st December) & Thai Immigration wouldn't understand it.

20 minutes ago, Thaidream said:

I am no trying to scare anyone- That is the exact amount I lost after the 1997 Baht devaluation which sent the Dollar from 25 to the dollar to around 44.  I have been coming to Thailand for almost 50 years- the Baht had been pretty stable from the early 70s to 1997- so there was no idea that  there would be a huge devaluation. Once in a lifetime-  there was a Great Depression; there was the Baht devaluation; then in 2008 the whole  World  economy almost imploded.

You don't have to agree with anything I said but  History is on my side, I have  been through 3 Coups in Thailand- There is an election in Feb/March 2019.   Risk is in the eyes of the beholder- I wont be putting any money in a Thai bank until mid 2019  at the earliest if ever.  Caveat Emptor.  Please go right ahead and delude yourself .  It's your money- not mine. Mine will stay in the USA where a Dollar is still a Dollar.

How did you lose the money?

Did you bring a load of money over at one rate & repatriate later at a worse rate or is it more a case of if you'd have brought the money over later you would have got an extra $22,000?

A Baht is still a Baht if you live there, it's only when moving money into/out of the country are you gaining/losing $s

1 minute ago, elviajero said:

Yes. Returning to their home country every 2 years is an option for those that don't want to put 800K in a Thai bank or can't provide proof of income.

Sorry, I misread your post, I read it as you were saying people who are > 50 but are not retired shouldn't get the Non-O but should get a Non-OA instead.

But the Non-OA is a very good option for people who don't want to put the 800k in an account & cannot prove the income.

13 minutes ago, Sheryl said:

A problem for those relying on dividends as those are usually paid quarterly not monthly.

Sent from my SM-J701F using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app
 

Not really a problem, just divide the dividend by the number of months it covers & send that.

E.g. 1 of my Stocks pays the Final in May and the Interim in September so if I had to show monthly income, I would divide May's by 4 & send equal amounts in May, Jun, Jul, Aug, then divide Septembers by 8 & send equal amounts in Sept, Oct, Nov, Dec, Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, result being 12x Dividend payments ????

Pain in the backside & an expensive way of getting the total over, but if needs must then it's not difficult to do.

2 hours ago, JLCrab said:

And maybe for at least the remaining 10% -

 

You put your money in
You take your money out
You put your money in
And you shake it all about
You do the hokey pokey
Turn money all around
That's what it's all about

Here's an idea... (Not targeted at you JL but a different take on the Money IN/OUT hokey pokey).

1. Find a mate who is using the 800K in the bank method & bringing in cash from outside Thailand to use for spends 
2. Get him to transfer the cash to your account instead of his
3. Give him the Thai Baht
4. Buy him a beer ???? 

5 minutes ago, elviajero said:

Retirement extensions are meant for people that don't work (retired). There's a clue in the name.

 

I understand some people don't want to keep money in Thailand, but that's a choice. If you -- can't/don't want to -- meet the criteria you can't get the extension.

 

Sounds like, if you're over 50, you'd be best off with Non 'O-A' (long stay) visa.

But the extension for this would be exactly the same as the Non-O Visa or are you saying they should be made to go back to their home country every 2 years to get a new Non-OA?

51 minutes ago, Sophon said:

On a normal savings account Bangkok Bank pays interest in June and December.

 

Sophon

Many Thanks, just saved me a trip to the Bank on Saturday ???? 

15 minutes ago, mogandave said:

 

You are referring to unrealized capital gains yes?

Once you sell, I believe the net gain is taxable.

 

No... I'm referring to the fact that Capital Gains are not Income hence any Tax to be paid is "Capital Gains Tax" not "Income Tax".

Whether Thai Immigration accept this as proof of income is another thing, but really it's no different than selling any other asset (House, Car etc...) 

2 hours ago, Pattaya46 said:

There are no taxes on capital gain made on stock exchange.

There are taxes on dividends, but deduced automatically before they are paid to you.

 

But yes, Thai banks documents of such incomes certainly would be no problem for extensions. (A lot easier to verify than foreign incomes )

Capital gains are not income (the name does give it away somewhat)...

Quick question, when / how often do Bangkok bank credit Interest to your account?

I opened an account on 18th May and had 1 interest credit on 16th June but nothing since, do I need to go into the Bank to report a problem or is it only paid every 6/12 months?

Thanks

MTV

11 minutes ago, JLCrab said:

But there would have to be some way to prove that this was 'new' money every month and not just a revolving door account where you deposit - withdraw and then re-deposit the same money month after month.

I doubt they would care as long as they see 65/40k going into the account each month (or however they decide is appropriate), but if they ever did care / realise it was happening, I would think that it's more likely they would close down the income route altogether before getting involved in reviewing documents provided from overseas.

Just now, JLCrab said:

So they can put 800K baht in the bank.

Why shouldn't we be able to use our Passive Income from Rentals, Stock Portfolios etc...

22 minutes ago, soalbundy said:

Nobody can, anywhere, with anything, a certain amount of reasonable trust is required, it all boils down to what is reasonable.

Yes & how trustworthy would you consider the Embassy to be if they said they’d verified the income shown to them when they haven’t (& the US Embassy makes it very clear that they don’t).

1 minute ago, soalbundy said:

Posts here float the idea that forgery is easy and almost normal, forgery requires criminal energy and a certain mind set that I and I'm sure the overwhelming majority don't have. How are you to notarize your documents in your home country when you are in Thailand ?  This, if possible, would be expensive and complicated, let us take it to the extreme, who verifies that the notary is real ? Not even the bible is verifiable and yet in court one swears to tell the truth placing ones hand on it. There is a cafe situated inside a court house in Munich, its name, 'cafe Meineid' (Meineid translated = perjury) Without trust there can be no verification. 

The point is not so much whether forgery is happening (and I suspect false declarations are happening more with the US Embassy than people providing false documents to the British one) but whether forgery could reasonably happen and so whether the Embassy can legitimately verify the documents.

E.g. The British Embassy accepted my Payslips from my Job in Singapore as proof of income, not only are these computer generated PDFs that would be simple to alter but they only contain plain text so could easily be mocked up without having to mess around with getting the correct images.

Added to this, these are then scanned & emailed further reducing the already minimal quality of the documents so would be impossible to spot any reasonable forgery.

[I was actually concerned about the quality of the documentation I was sending to them, so sent them from my corporate email account to provide some additional evidence that I worked there - obviously this is not difficult to spoof either]

I'm not saying forgery is happening on mass, but it's not difficult to do so I don't blame the British Embassy for saying that they cannot 100% verify that the income documents they are being provided are 100% legitimate

17 minutes ago, soalbundy said:

The German embassy letter uses words as :-

 

documents seen

certify

is receiving

 

verify doesn't raise its head but has worked for 13 years

And no doubt there will be Brits & Americans along shortly to tell you that theirs has worked even longer.

Times are changing & it's not difficult to see that IF Brits & Americans move to using income verified in Thailand by being deposited into a Thai Bank Account then Thai Immigration would look to standardize Income verification by having all countries do the same (Whether they provide an income letter or not).

You would then end up with the situation where all Retirement/Marriage extensions are simply supported by letters from local banks (& written in Thai) - How much easier would that make their jobs?

1 hour ago, luckyluke said:

We Belgians have only one Office of Pension. 

The Vice-Consul of the Austrian Consulate knows that and is familiar with these documents. 

So she check my print out of my yearly payments by the Office of Pension. 

Check that all the monthly paid amounts (with a reference number) appears as income on a print out of my Belgian Bank account(amounts with reference numbers). 

She do nothing more. 

Of course one can pretend that  both documents can be forged and that the Vice-Consul, with 10 years experience, is not able to see that it is a forgery. 

That sounds easy enough for Official Pensions, but what about Belgian's who get their income from other pensions/sources, is she 100% familiar & would be able to spot a forgery with those?

Obviously the answer is no, so hand-on-heart cannot 100% say that she can verify all income for all Belgian's (Unless the official Pension statement is the only income that any Belgian in Thailand has ever used for Income verification).

You can see where I'm going with this, your case may be very simple (as are the 1,000s of UK Pensioners living here drawing State or Military Pensions) but there are cases with your countrymen that are not & so there is a risk that your Consulate will also have to stop providing the letters or stop accepting these other forms of income (I truly hope not).

However, I think your biggest risk is that Thai Immigration get used to validating extension requests by looking at the underlying income proof and ask you to provide it (which they could do nowadays) which I'm assuming would mean you getting it translated & notarized.

FWIW, I believe that they will move to wanting to see the 800/400K on deposit or income coming into a Thai Bank Account as this is by far the easiest thing for them to get 99% verifiable proof of [A Bank letter produced within the previous 24 hours showing the amount on deposit or evidence of incoming deposits & stamped with the Bank's official stamp is pretty near impossible to forge]...

7 hours ago, JackThompson said:

I suppose they could be that foolish - but, so far, seem to have managed to resist shooting their citizens in the foot in that fashion.  Similar with Cambodia, Vietnam, and The PI, in this region - they aren't enacting policies to make their citizens poorer, at the behest of whatever corrupting influence. 

There is no logical explanation for removing self-sufficient foreigners spending foreign-capital into a nation's economy, unless they are engaged in criminal activity.

It makes sense to control how many self-sufficient foreigners spending foreign-capital (& how much foreign-capital they bring with them) as they drive up the cost of living & (unless you increase local salaries thus driving inflation & further driving up the cost of living) push down the standard of living for the locals.

It's a balancing act, hence Thailand is trying to ensure that retirees have the minimum assets/amount of spending that they believe injects foreign-capital into the appropriate "level" of the economy (i.e. "Middle Class" upwards).

2 hours ago, Maestro said:

Thank you for the clarification. 

 

In Switzerland, where I currently reside, the law is very much like in Thailand. I have no idea how it is in the other 200 or so countries on planet earth, nor does it really matter as the discussion was about the inheritance of the money deposited in Thai bank accounts by foreigners with temporary permission to stay in Thailand. Wouldn't Thai law apply to that?

Sorry I thought the discussion was concerns people had about what would happen to their 800,000 should they die in Thailand & the point I was trying to make is that this would not automatically follow Estate Law and go to the relevant spouse/children outside of Thailand unless they wrote a Will in Thailand.

Or any other country for that fact - As an aside, it's a quirk of UK Law that Wills done in England & Wales (Maybe also NI) do not cover you for assets in Scotland so you need a separate Scottish Will covering these.

Regardless, I think we can agree that if you do have a "large" amount of money in any country (including your own) it makes sense to have a Will with instructions to ensure it's distributed as you would want it to be.

8 minutes ago, malt25 said:

Never heard of Sober October. I think you need a few additional vote choices. IE. Survey didn't relate to me as I didn't know about it. I read TV most days & am pretty much across most local gossip. Was the Sober October "thingy" only related to or advertised in Bangkok ?

Sorry, I should have highlighted that it was a UK "Thingy" aimed at getting people to be more aware of / cut down on their alcohol intake & raise some cash for charity...

https://www.gosober.org.uk/

46 minutes ago, soalbundy said:

If Brits aren't able to show supporting docs despite having the embassy letter then BE hasn't shown due diligence. No way would I get my German letter if I couldn't produce original documents, so no I don't think other embassies will follow the BE.

Brits are able to show supporting documents but It's not difficult to forge a Bank/Income statement so the British Embassy is not able to verify these are 100% true (especially as applications are done via email which obviously involves scanning supporting documents making them even easier to forge.

US Embassy is merely certifying that it was you that signed the piece of paper, what that paper states/claims isn't verified, just the identity of the individual who signed it. 

How long you think Thai Immigration will continue to accept Embassy Income certificates without further proof from other countries after they stop accepting them from British/US Embassies & get used to asking people for supporting evidence (assuming this is an option going forward) & if you can get an extension by just showing the underlying documents why would anybody bother getting an Embassy letter?

28 minutes ago, Thaidream said:

Yes- what was the rush= BE and US stated their positions- cannot verify income at source . They could have said to Tjhai imm we will still issue letters and you can ask for added proof.  Instead, they unilaterally decided not to issue the letters. It makes no sense- I can't imagine Thai Imm saying if you won't verify income at source don't issue anything.    If that was the case Thai Imm would have sent our a message to ALL Embassies- 

Eventually the truth will come out- it always does. Right now- we are all waiting for some factual information on how to proceed.

Or it could have gone something like...

Thai Immigration: "It's been brought to our attention that when challenged, some of your citizens are unable to provide evidence proving the income declared, from now on we expect you to verify that the amounts are accurate before issuing the document" - Not an unreasonable request from Thai Immigration, albeit one that they've not asked for previously.

British/US Embassy: "We're not able to do that" - Not an unreasonable response from the Embassies as they're not able to verify income sources beyond cursory reviewing what they're provided with (British Embassy) or just witnessing signatures (US Embassy) .

Result: British/US Embassies acknowledge that they're not able to meet the standards asked by Thai Immigration & so stop issuing the certificates. 

Unless something changes in the meantime, there's no doubt that other embassies will follow suit...