JackGats

Here is a preview of a new smart visa which is in the pipeline for the next batch of new visas to be announced together with the next drawing of the Thai national lottery. Conditions of the new smart visa will be as follows: 1) Having bought 50k baht worth of Thai sandalwood scented candles over the four and a half month preceding the application. 2) Showing a long-term rental agreement of a condo with a swimming pool having at least 160 cm but no more than 180 cm maximal depth. L-shaped swimming pools are accepted. 3) Thai - or Thai accepted - health insurance showing 20k dollars refund against jelly-fish sting treatment (other than box jelly-fish). Visa holders will be allowed to stay in Thailand for 6 months and 23 days each year, with as many re-entries as they like, and their foreign assets* will be exempt of Thai tax. * insofar as they have already been taxed in their home countries.

Definitely worth it. Nasty disease. Some people never completely recover.

Depends on your age. When you reach a certain age your short-sightedness will cancel out with presbyopia. Not having had your short-sightedness corrected may enable you to still be able to read without glasses into old age.

I'm not sure the Thais can't use computers. I find their driving license system very streamlined. Within hours they issue you with a brand new driving license complete with a nice picture of yourself. When I went to apply for my Thai TIN they issued me with one within minutes. And there's the 90-reporting system, a bureaucratic waste of time from our standpoint, but it doesn't it give Thai bureaucrats plenty of computer practice?

Have you checked whether some update is due?

Imagine long-term visas being henceforth denied to those who stay less than 180 days per year because they can't by definition come up with a tax clearance. Some unexpected consequence that would be!

Methinks when the tax man or a bank asks if and where you're a tax resident, the question always refers to previous tax years. Otherwise the question cannot yet be answered.

Fake scare story. Psilocybin mushrooms are about as harmless as things can get.

Ketamine. A dirty, crappy high. And a dangerous drug to boot. Why is there in Thailand such production of crappy drugs (ketamine, meth, GHB, benzococktails ...) ? Are clandestine labs manned by high-school drop-outs?

I had the same problem. The Royal Orchid website had a button to upgrade a Star Alliance flight with miles, but no button for redeeming miles with respect to a Thai Airways flight. An absurdity.

An eye for an eye: the principle is sound. However what tends to happen is lynching crowds starting to demand the death penalty for victimless crimes (drugs) or tabu breaking involving no violence (pedophilia). Also, the death penalty would be reserved for males, female offenders being deemed born victims, however heinous and barbaric their crime. In countries such as France or the UK it's all that can be done for women who murder with premeditation to even spend a single day in jail! So on the whole, the death penalty, however sound in principle, ends up being a mess.

Negative income tax, another name for handing out money in exchange for no work. Economies work by paying people to work, period.

This Thai tax certificate requires you to be in TH for over 180 days during the tax year with respect to which the tax certificate gets issued. As I understand is issued for a particular year, typically "last year" or the years before that. That would mean getting a tax certificate each year for the preceding year. It is a hassle.

You mean dividends paid by German firms on German stock? Because if it's dividends on US stocks, the W-8BEN form doesn't require any tax certificate. It only requires a Thai TIN. Maybe the easiest way is to pay the full 30% tax on dividends other than US ones.

Kratom tea, for a good night's painless sleep.

One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them, One ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them

Can't speak for this year but I was there last year in late August and it was eerily quiet.

I don't think this is typically Thai, quite the reverse. Countries like France, Germany, Belgium ... have this vital interest thing explicitly written down in their tax rules. Such devious flexibility means they reserve the right to ensnare people into their tax net who make it a point of staying less than 180 days. At the same time, those who stay over 180 days are toast, for how can you stay over 180 days per year and not have your "vital interest" within the country? It's a win-win for the tax man. As for the Thais, they have repeated on several occasion that tax residents were people who stayed more than 180 days.

Now what is this "center of vital interest in Thailand" thing? I thought the Thais made it clear they were going by the 180-day rule.

Apt analysis, though the baht might find some support in the demise of the digital wallet.

Could it be that the Thai elites were not happy with his taxation plans? Come to that, I wasn't either.

Booking and Agoda are part of the same company, only Agoda has its head office in Singapore. The point of this I think is that Agoda is not required to play by EU rules. Agoda jacks up the price at the last click. Agoda refuses to charge in Thai baht if you pay with an EU credit card, so instead of getting the good Visa exchange rate, you get the crappy Agoda exchange rate. IMO Booking runs Agoda as a non-EU compliant subsidiary.

Not sure about that. Often the price on the hotel's website is higher than the price on the booking platforms. Also, if you book through the hotel website there's no cancellation policy except once you pay the money is gone.

Hillary Clinton was winning in the polls until the very end, remember?