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Mike Teavee
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Posts posted by Mike Teavee
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Nothing unusual about your agent doing the TM30 (most agencies will do it online for you) but they should give you a "Receipt" (either from immigration if they did it in person OR print out from the system if they've done it online).
So simplest way to be sure is to ask your Agent for the TM30 receipt.
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27 minutes ago, bradiston said:
I'm paying 1800 a quarter. I've discovered I very rarely use it. The movies are quite obviously downloaded from eg pirate bay. Foreign ones often don't have subs. The audio and video on many need a lot of adjustments as they're way out of sync. Some series just conk half way through.
As for sport. Well I get a much better Eurosport feed from my cable providers. No ads. There's no Premier channel 3 for rugby.
I'll be looking to switch providers.
As mentioned, I've recently (2 days ago) subscribed to WizzTV (<3,500b per year), mainly because I'm a big fan of British TV Series & sometimes struggle to get them on my Android Box using the free options (Cinema HD & TeaTime, I used to use Kodi but my box is too old to run it now).
So far so good (was watching the EPL Football on Sunday & it was flawless) but almost all of my mates in Bangkok who are more into watching sports (especially Horse Racing) than me have moved to the iViewHD Plus service https://www.iviewhd.com/index.html which is roughly twice as much
Can get a 3 day trial of the iView service if it's of interest.
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5 hours ago, SuperSaiyan said:
No, you just need to extend it the first time after 59. I don't have the exact dates in my head, but it is something like: Extend first after 59 days for another 60 days, then after 60 days extend it for 90 days and after 90 days you can extend it for a year or so.
You can stay inside Philippines for up to 3 years without leaving! After 3 years you just do a border run by flying in and out and you can stay another 3 years! It's an absolute dream!
As a Brit (so am pretty sure it would be the same for somebody from the EU) it's 30 days on Arrival & your 1st extension will be for 29 days, though I do recall one time being stood behind an old gentleman who the Immigration Officer did a 29 day extension for there & then.
After that you can extend for 1,2 or 6 months depending on a number of factors (not least where you're staying in Philippines, personally I'd recommend Davao City for a longer stay) up to a maximum of 3 years.
Do have a return flight (or throw away ticket, e.g. https://onwardticket.com/) out of Philippines within the 1st 30 days as not only do you risk being denied check-in by your airline but there is also a risk of the Immigration Officer wanting to see it when in the Philippines... Happened to me a couple of times when I used one-way flights from Singapore to Davao & returned on a different airline from Cebu/ Kalibo (Boracay). Has never happened to me in Thailand.
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On 8/5/2023 at 3:21 PM, bradiston said:
Everything sorted. I ordered a Mecool K2 plus box from Lazada (2135 delivered)
How are you finding the Mecool K2 Plus? I ordered one yesterday on Lazada (2,158 delivered) which will hopefully be arriving today. My main motivation for buying it is there's a noticeable difference between Netflix running at 4K on my Samsung TV & Netflix running at 1080P on my current (6-7 years old) HiSense Android box.
Also curious as to what IPTV service/application you're using, I signed up for 1 year with WizzTV (3,436.46 for the "Plus" service that includes a built in VPN) & so far, so good but have heard great things about "Eric" so was going to recommend him to a mate of mine who's moving to Pattaya in a couple of weeks & needs a "No Fuss" service, he currently pays 5,700b per quarter for a similar service from "Bangkok Bob", but has had this for 6-7 years.
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12 hours ago, blackshadow said:
good buffet brekkie has good swim pools too
Be interested in when you had breakfast at the Areca Lodge only I thought it was very poor, but like somebody already posted, this was during Covid so might have just been because there were very few people staying there at that time.
Great hotel though & one I recommend to all of my friends when they visit Pattaya & want to be "Near The Action".
Another alternative would be a condo in View Talay 6, which can be rented for short stays (i.e. doesn't have to be >30 days) from https://www.dancewatchers.com/ or https://www.honeyscoffeehouse.com/
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17 hours ago, Seppius said:
Sure I watched Hypnotic a few months ago? Remember thinking how bad it was, yet it was only released 1st Sept, was i dreaming?
There was a Netflix movie of the same name in 2021…
A young woman seeking self-improvement enlists the help of a renowned hypnotherapist. But after a handful of intense sessions, she discovers unexpected and deadly consequences.
https://m.imdb.com/title/tt12383460/
And yes, it was bad
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The Tower Season 2 ...
After a long-serving cop and a teenage girl fall to their deaths from a London tower block, Detective Sarah Collins investigates the dark heart of policing.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14364876/
Evacuation
The documentary military thriller revealing the inside story of the perilous British campaign to evacuate Kabul in 2021 - including top-to-bottom access to the Ministry of Defence
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14 minutes ago, Mike Teavee said:
no alternatives to the Elite Visa for guys who are <50, not married, no kids, don’t want to work, go to school, volunteer, invest money etc…
For some reason I’m reminded of the Monty Python sketch…
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13 minutes ago, JayClay said:
But I was responding to somebody claiming that there are alternative options, for anybody who wants to stay here, for just 1,900bt per year!
I never said that there should be options, I simply corrected somebody who said that there are options.
We're done here.
And I was responding to your initial (Rhetorical) question about there being no alternatives to the Elite Visa for guys who are <50, not married, no kids, don’t want to work, go to school, volunteer, invest money etc… but You’re right, let’s leave it there…
Genuinely hope you find a suitable visa so you can stay in Thailand if this is where you want to live, I wanted to move here at 42 (15 years ago) but didn’t learn about the Thai Elite Visa until I was 48 & at that time was earning good money in Singapore & so could visit whenever I wanted before getting my non-IMM O (which I only got because I was stopped at DMK for entering Thailand too many times on Visa Exempt).
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4 minutes ago, JayClay said:
No offense taken. The argument I'm making is clearly too complex for you to understand.
I'll try and put it into bullet points for you. If you still don't get it, you're on your own...
- Somebody says "the Elite visa is stupid. Who would pay for such a visa when there's easier/cheaper options out there?"
- For some people there aren't easier/cheaper options out there therefore the visa does make sense.
That's it. I'm not complaining about the visa options availabile to unmarried (without kids....) people under the age of 50. I'm simply saying that for that given demographic the Elita visa does make sense.
That's it. It's a really, really simple point. Stunningly so.
And in no way did I argue against that fact… but you asked for alternatives to the Elite visa for <50, unmarried, no kids guys & I simply pointed out that there doesn’t have to be one & the alternative is to live somewhere else
Is that simple enough for you to understand?
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24 minutes ago, JayClay said:
I am not going to drop 5 million baht on a visa. I have never suggested that I would.
1 million for 20 years would have be reasonable if I had had access to that sort of money. At 5 million, obviously it's no longer reasonable.
My views on this aren't hard to find. My very first post on this thread states my position clearly.
As for your suggestion of getting married... Do you honestly think that would cost less than 5 million baht over 20 years??
No offence but none of us have a “Right” to live in Thailand & Thailand isn’t obligated to make one available to us so if there are no suitable long term stay options available (as there wasn’t for me when I was under 50), you simply live somewhere else (in my case Singapore) & visit as often as you like/can.
I’m now 57 (born 1966, does that make me a Boomer or Gen X, I feel more Gen X) & on the Non-IMM O Treadmill each year but was/am sorely tempted by the 1Million THB 20 year Elite Visa… At 5Million I’ll go down the Non-IMM OX or LTR route (granted both only available to > 50s so of no use to you at this stage of your life).
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3 hours ago, Chomper Higgot said:
No they are not,
They are determined by the gap between income and expenditure.
Millions don’t earn enough to cover basic and essential needs.
Not sure if our American cousins ever came across (Charles) Dickens at school but I always remember the quote…
“Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen and six, result happiness”.
“Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery” -
Anybody use iView Plus HD? More expensive than WizzTV but seems to have been voted the best IPTV channel for live sports for 2022.
Can get a free 3Day trial here https://www.iviewhd.tv/shop/index.php?cPath=6
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2 hours ago, Walker88 said:
Not sure this is another answer, but it is real world....
I spent many years working in Japan. I made a lot, so I was in a tax rate of---IIRC---75%. Maybe it was only 70%. I just know it was the highest rate.
Japan still had massive budget deficits despite those tax rates. In fact, among G7 nations, the debt/GDP wasn't even close. Japan was Greece, albeit with more smoke and mirrors.
Today, the Japanese economy is a basket case financially. Its population is becoming an inverted pyramid, while its pension system is massively underfunded. (I could write a long tome on the peculiarity of Japanese accounting that allowed this underfunding to happen and remain somewhat invisible.)
Japan could go to a 99% max tax rate and they still wouldn't be able to make ends meet. They are just the canary in the coal mine, as we all have the same thing coming.
And on the flip side Singapore has some of the lowest taxes in the world (max 22% income tax, I was paying 12% on multi-6 figure salary) & yet is one of the most prosperous countries.
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14 hours ago, KhunLA said:I think we paid more than enough already. 25-35+% (that's just fed tax) of our income, and the bottom half, pay 15-0%
You don't have enough money, try earning more.
Because ... Sooner or later, you run out of other people's money.
"The top 10 percent of earners paid 74 percent of all income taxes and the top 25 percent paid 89 percent. Altogether, the top fifty percent of filers earned 89 percent of all income and were responsible for 97.7 percent of all income taxes paid in 2020."
Whenever I hear people say “Tax the Rich more” I’m reminded of the 10 men in a bar story…
Suppose that once a week, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this…
The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
And the tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.
So, that’s what they decided to do.
The ten men drank in the bar every week and seemed quite happy with the arrangement until, one day, the owner caused them a little problem. “Since you are all such good customers,” he said, “I’m going to reduce the cost of your weekly beer by $20.” Drinks for the ten men would now cost just $80.
The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes. So the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free but what about the other six men? The paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his fair share? They realised that $20 divided by six is $3.33 but if they subtracted that from everybody’s share then not only would the first four men still be drinking for free but the fifth and sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer.
So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fairer to reduce each man’s bill by a higher percentage.
They decided to follow the principle of the tax system they had been using and he proceeded to work out the amounts he suggested that each should now pay.
And so, the fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (a 100% saving).
The sixth man now paid $2 instead of $3 (a 33% saving).
The seventh man now paid $5 instead of $7 (a 28% saving).
The eighth man now paid $9 instead of $12 (a 25% saving).
The ninth man now paid $14 instead of $18 (a 22% saving).
And the tenth man now paid $49 instead of $59 (a 16% saving).
Each of the last six was better off than before with the first four continuing to drink for free.
But, once outside the bar, the men began to compare their savings. “I only got $1 out of the $20 saving,” declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man, “but he got $10!“
“Yeah, that’s right,” exclaimed the fifth man. “I only saved a $1 too. It’s unfair that he got ten times more benefit than me!”
“That’s true!” shouted the seventh man. “Why should he get $10 back, when I only got $2? The wealthy get all the breaks!”
“Wait a minute,” yelled the first four men in unison, “we didn’t get anything at all. This new tax system exploits the poor!” The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.
The next week the tenth man didn’t show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had their beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important – they didn’t have enough money between all of them to pay for even half of the bill!
And that is how our tax system works. The people who already pay the highest taxes will naturally get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy and they just might not show up anymore. In the fact, they might start drinking overseas, where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.
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On 8/26/2023 at 7:30 PM, doctormann said:
Ha-ha! If I had a lot of money in my international account (>100k GBP) then I would not be paying their 40 GBP per month fee
Do you know if lodging 100K’s worth of stocks with them would waive the monthly fee?
I’ve had a quick look at the Barclays website & it does say “Investments” (not just cash).
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10 hours ago, Lucian said:
All in all, from Counter 4 to getting the new TM47 approval, it took no more than 15 minutes
15 mins in CW but how long did it take you to get there & back home again?
When I lived in On Nut it was at least 1.5 hours each way so I used to pay an agent (who had offices in my condo) 380b for them to do the report for me, would have cost me 3x that in taxis had I gone to do it in person.
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3 minutes ago, lamyai3 said:
Similar thoughts here. Wondering if it'd be necessary to leave Thailand and come back on a visa exempt entry in order to access the money to pay, given that the unfunded period on the Non O between payment and having the PE sticker affixed could constitute an overstay?
No need to leave Thailand... Thailand Elite & will take you to Immigration to have your new Visa stamped in your Passport - My concern is my current Permission to stay is until 26/9/2024 so will I get a new Visa from then or will I lose the 1 year that I've just extended.
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17 minutes ago, JBChiangRai said:
Calculating the 20 year ESE is only 200k more than Retirement extension was exactly my thought process too. It's more than 25 years since the Retirement 800k has had a review, at some point soon I believe the 200k extra will become a saving in real terms.
As far as the agent route goes, I think that
scamscheme will be ending well before your 20 year ESE expires.My Agent just completes/make sure my paperwork is in order before I go to do my extension & at 6,100b (8,000 - 1,900 immigration fee) I don't feel like it's a scam...
But I was more asking about recommendations for an Agent to do the Elite Visa process for me (If it costs me nothing & I if I don't need it quickly then why not let somebody else do all of the work for me).
I do agree that the 800K is likely to be sharply increased at some point but I sincerely hope that existing Non-IMM O guys are "Grandfathered" in (Yes I am one of them ???? ), be interesting to see how much Agent's "Financially Assisted" Visas go up by when it does.
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2 hours ago, Neeranam said:
Now I'm totally confused why anyone would ever buy one of these things.
I see how it can help someone, like yourself, who is travelling in and out a few times a year. but you have to go to immigration every 90 days is bizarre.
I have been seriously considering applying for 1 under the current scheme (1Million Baht for 20 years) as in reality it's only 200K (I have to keep 800K in bank for my Non-IMM O anyway & consider that money as spent already).
In fact I tried to apply before doing my last extension but the sh1tty application form that the formal Thai Elite Site gives you doesn't work, can't enter phone number in one of the fields + something else that I had to try to edit in with Adobe... Why do they ask you all the questions that the form needs answering & then ask you to provide all that information again on a form doesn't work.
My reasoning was really simple, I pay an Agent 8K to do my extension (160K over 20 years) plus another 4K for a multi re-entry permit (another 80K) - I know I can do it myself just like I can queue up at the airport & not use the Fast lane but I choose to pay not to do this (So add in 1,200b per exit/entry to Thailand or 80K for my annual trip home to the UK which I'd do in economy if I can have fast track/lounge access at the airport).
Have just extended my current permission to stay so assuming they give me the visa from the end of it (26th Sept 2024) I'll be 78 by the time it expires & that feels good enough to me.
Does anybody have any recommendation for an Agent to use to do this for me, It would seem that it wouldn't cost me anything to use an agent & I'm in no rush to get the Visa so why not?
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3 hours ago, Neeranam said:
Are you saying that you can pay 900k baht for a 5 year visa but still need to do the 1 year extensions? Surely not.
Yes if you spend 1 full year in Thailand, No if you exit Thailand at any point during the year as you will be given a new 1 year permission to stay on entry.
IIRC the Guy I mentioned didn't realise this & ended up with an overstay of > 90 days which got him a 1 year ban at that time...
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17 minutes ago, Kenny202 said:Stupid me got mixed up, I was thinking of somewhere else Prachuap Khiri Khan province. Never been to Bang Saen but I do know guys who go there for a break from Pattaya and speak highly of it. Old school bar area.
I've been to Bang Saen many times & don't recall seeing any bar areas though granted I was only going for a beach break from Bangkok
Are you sure you're not mixing it up with Ban Chang which does have an old school bar area & is somewhere that regular crawls from Pattaya are run to.
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It does sound like you were near the Outback Restaurant (though I'd put this at 30 mins away from Central Pattaya ) https://goo.gl/maps/v1oEZGa9Sr5k3Qwf7
Which has a Planet Football nearby https://goo.gl/maps/ccXYVfuKaRZb7oZv6
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Wanted: The Escape of Carlos Ghosn...
Chronicles the rise and fall of former Nissan and Renault CEO Carlos Ghosn, how one of the most admired businessmen became its most famous international fugitive.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15520170/
How do i know if my landlord has registered my TM30 ?
in Thai Visas, Residency, and Work Permits
Posted · Edited by Mike Teavee
I took "Agent" to mean his "Real Estate" Agent not "Visa" Agent, the Lady who found us our previous condo did my TM30 (in person) without me even asking her to do it & then did another one when my GF happened to mention to her I was visiting the UK & would be away for a couple of weeks (though I didn't need her to as I was returning to the same address).
For the last move my new Landlord offered to do it online for me but as I was doing my Extension, Multi Re-Entry Permit & 90 day report at that time, I just got my "Visa" agent to do my TM30 for me (500b) [Nothing dodgy about it as I keep the 800K in the bank all year round & I know it was done in Jomtien because I had to go there on the day to have my picture taken].