Mike Teavee

Crime https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12759778/ Season 2 has just started on ITV/ITVX...

From Today's Telegraph... Barclays to close accounts of all British expats Expats who bank with Barclays are to be stripped of their accounts in a move that could leave some customers unable to access their savings and pensions. British people living abroad will no longer be able to hold a Barclays UK current or savings account, the lender said. The bank began a review of its international offerings in 2021 and is now writing to customers with a six-month warning. Wealthy expats can open a global account with Barclays, which allows easy online access and currency flexibility, but need to maintain a balance of £100,000 in order to avoid a monthly charge of £40. https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/barclays-debank-british-expats-134809331.html?guccounter=1 Some good news if you have a loan, mortgage or Cash ISA (Not sure about Stock ISA) with them... Under the latest closures, those with cash ISAs and fixed-rate bonds will be able to keep their accounts unless they live in Estonia, Italy, the Netherlands or Slovakia. The same rule applies to mortgage and loan holders with the UK wing of the bank. However, existing home loan customers will not be able to remortgage when their term ends.

Not sold mine yet but will be next year given the way the UK is going for people who are only landlords because we rent out the house we used to live in. Will buy a condo in Thailand & put the other 65-75% into some Blue Chip stocks with the net result being I'll live rent free & get more income than the 4% (before agent fees & expenses) that the house is currently generating (My fault, I never raise the rent so it's at 2/3rds the normal market rate - as I said, I didn't get into this to be a landlord). If I ever go back, I'll sell the investments & buy a new place, why would I want to live in a 4 bedroom detached house in the middle of nowhere when I've been living in Condos for the past 16 years... Not even sure I ever want to live in a place with stairs again.

If we're talking about the 10/11% Withholding tax paid on Dividends in the UK then you (as an Individual) cannot claim a Tax Credit for this, and in reality you haven't paid it [Do the calculation on declared dividend x #Shares you'll find you haven't paid any Tax]... This "Tax Credit" is for the Company to offset the dividend against it's profits when calculating it's Corporation Tax, but it does come into play as a Non-UK Resident when it comes to the dividend being treated as "Excluded Income" as this should be the only Tax that you need to "Pay" & so no further Tax is due. If Thailand were to start Taxing Dividend Income being brought into the country from any previous Tax Year then it would be very costly & a nightmare to calculate for me as I typically re-invest the Dividend & only bring the cash in when I sell the asset at some point a few years later, by which time it has generated it's own Dividends which have been reinvested, sometimes back into the same stock which then has generated it's own dividends.... etc... ???? If you did need to pay additional Tax on any (Non-ISA) Dividend income that takes you over your allowances of £13,570 (£12,570 Personal Taxation Allowance + £1,000 Dividend Allowance), then you will pay tax on this at a rate of :- - 8.75% Basic Rate (£13,570 - £37,700) - 33.75% Higher Rate (£37,701 - £150,000) - 39.35% Additional Rate (> £150,001) You should be able to offset any of this additional Tax against any further Tax that Thailand applies (Will be treated as Income so 0-35%) if you bring the money across.

My private pension kicks in at 60 & because of the way defined benefit pensions work, I need to take the Tax Free element before/as part of the 1st payment, after that monthly payments are fixed (except adjusted for inflation) so there is no opportunity to defer any part of the tax free lump sum. State Pension will kick in at 67 for me.

I was talking about the tax free lump sum that you can take when you start taking your Private (in my case Defined Benefits/Final Salary) Pension which can be up to 25% of the value of the pension. State pension does count towards your personal taxation allowance and so any additional taxable income can take you over your PTA & you would be liable to tax on the excess.

The big difference is with the Elite Visa you are paying 900K for the Visa & so it's no longer your money (I believe you can purchase it without even bringing money into Thailand), but with the LTR you may need to bring in $250K "Investment" if your Pension is below <$80K pa & this money is still yours (e.g. you could leave it sat in a bank account if you liked). TBH I'm not concerned about it as if they were to start taxing expats who bring Investment money into Thailand it would kill foreign currency investment & as I say, there seems a simple enough way around it (Don't be Tax Resident in Thailand in the Year that you bring in the money).

It's actually the other way round... if the money was part of a "Taxed Pension" then I don't believe the Thai govt can take any as I would already have paid tax under the UK/Thai DTA (Double Taxation Agreement), it's the fact that it is tax free in the UK that is concerning me. Bitcoin etc... seem to be one of the main areas that the Thai govt is looking to start taxing gains from so is probably the last thing you should do in this scenario... But that aside, the point is to bring in >$250,000 investment to support my LTR Visa application so needs to be "Out in the Open".

Will start receiving my private pension(s) in Feb 2026 & the current plan is to take 8-10Million THB as a tax free lump sum and use it to buy a Condo/support my LTR Wealthy Pensioner application but if Thailand is going to take approx. 3.5Million Tax from this then obviously that won't be happening. I wonder if I can do a Hotblack Desiato (https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/Hotblack_Desiato) & spend 1 year Dead (to Thailand) to get around it. Joking aside, as a single guy who loves to travel it wouldn't be hard for me to do a year or 2 where I spend < 180days in Thailand & bring the money in during that time.

Rental contract maybe?

Lol, that's not Bangkok, it's Naklua Soi 16 (Pattaya), can see the Riviera Wongamat Beach in the distance...

OECD's Common Reporting Standard... https://www.oecd.org/tax/automatic-exchange/common-reporting-standard/

Interesting... None of my UK Banks could share my account transactions information with Thailand as they are not aware of my Thailand Tax Identifier Number, 1 (Virgin One now Natwest) has asked for it & was ignored as I didn't have one at that time, the other (Barclays) has recently started to close accounts for people who are Non-UK resident for other "Operational" reasons so have never asked for it. My Singapore Bank (Citi) knows I live in Thailand, even sends me new Debit cards here, but has never mentioned needing to know anything about my banking/Tax details here.

But surely the whole point of them requiring copies of your foreign bank account statements is so they can see the source of the money that you are transferring into Thailand. E.g. if they see an entry of £3,000 being paid into your account on September 1st from your pension provider and then a transfer of 132,000b from that account to your Thai Bank account on September 2nd they could match the 2 and say it’s “Income Earned” from your pension provider. BTW I can’t see them doing this in practise as it would be a massive amount of work to collate all the data of where income came in from (especially if it went back to previous years) & then try to match it with monies sent, just saying that it technically would be possible to do so.

Guys In the LTR Visa thread seem to have some concerns about it... Post contains a link to a Thai Enquirer article that seems to give a different take on what the new regulations cover/target... https://www.thaienquirer.com/50748/new-tax-regulations-raises-questions-and-concerns/

Looking at Article 11 of the DTA it seems you could be taxed on income from Dividends...

Less than 150,000b pa! - How do you live on 12,500b pm! (No don't answer that)!!! For anybody who's interested here are the current Thai Tax Rate bands...

Sometimes have a similar problem but it seems to go away on it's own (with the help of a few Tylenol) after a few days so would be interested in hearing about where you go & your experience in getting it treated in Pattaya.

I've always thought that the guys using the >65K pm income method for their retirement extensions are leaving themselves open to having to pay tax on it. Obviously some income streams like state pensions may be exempt but private pensions would seem to be fair game, even if they've already paid tax on the income in their home countries.

Could be they claim it & force you to reclaim it via a Tax Return in Thailand or your home country or both.

30+ years since I read the book but I seem to remember the story behind that scene was that one of the last things she saw before being blind was a Tiger so I can only imagine how it must have felt to her to touch one.

Assuming you have a TM30 registering you at the address (agent or owner should provide this) then I don’t think you’ll have a problem getting a CoR if renting for 1 month… just provide your contract / AirBnB receipt - make sure you know/state which Bank you need the CoR for. Again, If it this were me, I would take any doubt/hassle out of it by getting an Agent to do it for me, costs 200b more but that’s cheaper than a Bolt Central Pattaya to/from Jomtien IO.

Lol, absolutely correct again & for anybody who's interested, here's the scene from Manhunter... Now it's going to bug me why I got an image in my head of a Blind Black girl stroking a tiger when I thought of that scene :S

Ignore me, I've just remembered that Red Dragon is a remake of Man Hunter but I remember Ralph Fiennes as Frances Dolarhyde more so the above clip came to mind Funny but the black girl who played FD's GF in the original movie also came to mind when I thought of that scene... so I sort of 1/2 remembered them both ???? If I had to choose I'd say Manhunter was the better movie.

I think you're thinking of Red Dragon... https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0289765/ I thought Ralph Fiennes was excellent in this...