WeekendRaider

The idea we should all have a “plan B” makes sense and I also thought of this after having problems this year.  But didn’t do one.  Doing such a plan at all seriously could not help but change the way we think of our lives here in a way that is not positive.  Thailand needs to really revamp this whole thing.  This whole saga is bad for everyone.

everyday, some farlang are the total opposite of local folks, but they live in their own little worlds.

example.  when you visit the Aetna office in the city of Chiangmai they have many cancer insurance offers all over the place.  doesn't my inpatient coverage include cancer?  'yes, it does but the Thai people like to also buy extra insurance for cancer'.  and most would never even go without inpatient cover even if they have paid up Social Security cards... me when I taught at a Thai university, still kept BUPA paid up on top of that for sure and I was in my 40's not trying to keep my insurance for old age.  yeah, plus it expires as soon as you stop the school stuff.

and here we have a Brit with no insurance at all.  just a coincidence at home it would not be a worry for him. 

but somehow ended up in Thailand.  or that's how I read this, yes?

 

5 hours ago, BritManToo said:

Always a mistake, never speak to IOs or other government officials in Thai, they don't like it.

Happy and a bit stupid is the way to go.

most of the time our "Thai" is not very good at all.  I've heard plenty of "fluent Thai" farlang who can seem to talk their heads off in Pasa Thai but don't even come close to correctly pronouncing the most simple and common everyday words.   and don't even know it.   and I don't mean Gahm Meuang words.  and not only that, but he is at a Bangkok airport so he means Pasa Thai.  "living in Chiangmai for 11 years".  Thai is good for working in a school... ordering simple food and watching TV.  to live in Chiangmai long term at all, other than as a tourist in the farlang sections... even if working as a teacher, you need to understand more than just Pasa Thai... and would indicate it as well and especially if talking about speaking Thai several times.  over the top.  those are all good 'tells', that his Thai is not very good at all.  

yeah agree on allowing securities in some future law... that would be quite nice... but the minimum would need to be maybe 5 million THB in present market value... and the law would have to be changed.  I'd like to see that!  and please, they really should not ever require outpatient health cover... inpatient someday but not outpatient.  and 5 million THB market value securities in a local cash only brokerage account... but to apply any kind of equivalence to mutual fund money versus 800K THB cash in a retail bank account is silly.        

dude, if they made a new law that allowed say 5 million in a Thai brokerage account.... maybe.  but why would real property be considered funding for living here such as paying for very expensive imported medical supplies or use of equipment such as scanning machines????  800K THB should be easy to do.  if not...... it goes without saying.  even with full inpatient coverage we still should have at a few million THB locally held to cover non ambulatory health care emergencies.  end of story.

I heard a scooter start and stop, over and over... I told my wife 'that's the mail'.... she thought no, it's our neighbor.  it was the mail.   Sunday lunch time delivered about 11:30 and included an official Royal Thai Police notification.  my visa is about to expire February 28.  today is the 10th of March.

another thought on "entitlements" and why increasingly any old style "defined benefit" is referred to as an entitlement.  we vote.  locally and nationally also, or at least we can.  and we are informed.  or should be.  public pensions that are unfunded or underfunded when our governments, local state and national are running huge deficits...... means something.  that something is better off flavored as an "entitlement" than a 'pension you can count on'.  that's not even including that those old style pensions are almost always in US Dollars and not hedged at all for changes in exchange rates, on top of being promises made by politicians long gone from office.  and no, we don't just have deficits.  and we have some extra unfunded liabs that are not even talked about.  yet.  disaster relief for floods, tornadoes... and such if 'simple physics' is as simple as we science folks believe it is.  that's not something the CBO even includes in the budgets with hard numbers at all.  they are subsumed as 'one time' events'.  of course they are.  gulp.
 

defined benefit pensions are easily "self directed" to include Thai securities, although they will be held in nominee name only.  bank secrecy.  so no refund, but... hedged.   

question about monthly transfers.  hefty fees are involved.  and in the USA now, most pensions are not monthly.  in fact, when we originally passed new pension laws, in the early 1980's it was, I was actually asked to study them by my employer.  I remember that quite well.  I was an enrolled IRS agent at the time working for a payroll software developer.  yeah, some government folks get monthly payments, an old style "pension", we generally talk about those as "entitlements" now.  in general, we do.  most folks today in the USA only get Social Security as a monthly thing.... and for most of us we wait until we are 67 or 70 now to get it so we use our "real" pensions, which are not monthly.  we changed those laws in the early 1980's.  this is why the US cannot verify a "monthly pension amount".  no American swearing to what their "monthly pension" amount knows for sure what that amount is, it is such a vague concept once you put "monthly" to it.  so the government cannot possibly know any better to verify it at all.  except as to what their average was for the prior tax year.   this seems to be going over a lot of folks heads.  

that the Thai rules don't apply very well to anything but old style government pensions is the real crux of the problem.

for example it is the only way to make sense to using today's fx rate and applying it to income affadvits from 4 to 6 months ago.  because it assumes a "fixed" lifetime monthly pension amount.  

a distribution from an IRA account is usually 401k money.  even when it isn't it is still a pension distribution by any definition of those words.  but surely 401k money is "pension income" if anything is a "pension" in the USA for many decades now.  in the law, in accounting and in "real life".  in fact, it is why we increasingly refer to any at all "fixed" monthly payouts as "entitlements".  from a new law viewpoint they are entitlements.  it's been that way since the Reagan administration.

going back at least 5 years, Charles Schwab to my local Bangkok Bank branch always shown as FTT.  SWIFT via request by airmail.  used to request transfers by fax but the USA switched to a "digital fax" which is difficult to find here.  in fact, never found such a fax in Chiangmai yet.  but didn't look too hard either.  anyone know?

so it used to be the income affadavit was simple and sure.   I'm done for one year now and will see how this works later, I am trying to delay US Soc Sec until 67 and that's 4 years out still for me.  but if that becomes better than 800K in a bank... maybe it changes my mind about waiting for Soc Sec because direct deposit to BBL would seem to be a cinch for TI to verify.  

why not mail the 90 day in?  you don't stay somewhere long enough to get the 90 day receipt back?  or is it a worry thing, don't trust the mail or mailman is too overworked... I have that situation but still send by mail.  I'm a worry person, and have over worked mailman, he works Buddhist holidays and as late as 8 pm on weekends.  but no problem with 90 day in Chiangmai and get to avoid the "weauhng" except for some shopping.  it's wonderful.  SASE with 9 THB stamp.  

can I add a question?  if you were in Thailand a long while, let's say more than a few years on a NON O and then you leave and within days or a few weeks apply for a tourist visa and/or get one and return to Thailand at an airport.... does anyone along the way say "hey!  you were living in Thailand!  you are not a tourist in the usual sense" and have some kind of problem.  or is this another one of those 'it's Thailand' so a tourist is merely anyone who wants to visit even if they had just been living here for 30 years and suddenly pop!  morph into a "tourist".   are there issues like this here?  or don't worry at all ever on this? 

just in case [my reply about the consulate affidavit trips being only one trip a year].. my side comment about paddy and trash burning kind of saving us.... most of that aerosol and PM forcing is the Yellow River basin obviously..... but it is a metaphor (the local smoke) and a good thing if you understand simple physics.  you know, example why "aviation" was not included in COP21.  that kind of thing.  we really need to now about this stuff.  be prepared.  2015 and 2016 might not have been an exception.  it could have been a harbinger.   

too many folks don't read posts and think carefully, and also like to believe 'everyone is the same' [as they are].   no!   allow me to dispel that notion if you read on...  sure!  I will drop a million baht into a retail bank and leave it there.  the blue motif one.  but my average ROI for 10 years or so has easily been closer to 3 digits than 1 and more important the affidavit only required one trip.. and that to the "weahaung" which I don't mind every once in a while... if I get there early in the day.  one trip to the Consulate.   the bank book thing, lamentably now that it is gone, requires 2 trips and, worse, my nearest local bank is almost as far away from my home as the "weahaung" is!!!!!  

it's also why I made mistakes..... I get up with the morning market folks, that's means about 2 am yes? and am barely awake when I do this in the place tourists call "Chiangmai" except that is the entire province in normal conversation where I live.  and.... my first thought whenever in "Chiangmai" is to leave and get back to where life is very special, which is rural village life.... the total opposite of a cheap hangout place.  plus... I believe in simple physics and the scene of lots of tourists is inescapably depressing as well.  EXAMPLE.  that smoke from the rice paddies and 2.5 PM nonsense is a negative forcing dudes.  that means it is a very very GOOD thing.   not to say we should burn stuff but that anyone who doesn't know that stuff is why the "polar vortex" in the USA "news" wasn't "news" 30 years ago, has a little reading up to do.   

someone may have this problem, so I wrote this thing.  but it cannot just be a few sentences.  if it sounds like it might be you, you may want to read the whole thing.
     

there is a 'trap for the unwary'.   my pension income as a monthly number is not at all fixed.  so I used a conservative figure when I swore to a affidavit at the US Consulate in Chiangmai in November but which was used until just today. 

because in the past we normally would swear to an affidavit a few days before we use it a problem crops up only now when we have affidavits that are months old.   in the west this would not be a problem and I will explain that, as an accountant, but let me get to the Thai way of dealing with this which is how Immigration works.  basically, you disappear into a rabbit's hole and magically everything is okay but only after a few weeks of extreme stress.  you "skate by". 

the US dollar has dropped a lot in a few months.  and I swore to a conservative figure at the US Consulate.  which cannot be changed with a new affidavit anymore.  "that should not be a problem because as a 'foreigner' you receive your pension in dollars".

WRONG.  I have lived in Thailand almost 20 years and I no longer "think" in dollars at all... ever.  even if I had a fixed monthly pension that only people with small pensions might still ever depend on.  my "pension income" swings quite a lot, day to day actually.  so I don not have a magic monthly number and even if I did it would be in my head in Thai Baht.  so when I swore to it I used the fx exchange rate at that time, I did not try to predict what it would be in US dollars 4 months later!!!!  of course not!

but TI uses the fx rate at the time you file for an extension.  that only makes sense if your pension income is relatively fixed and as well is a monthly distribution and you know what that magic number is in US dollars.  not Thai Baht.  do you see the problem?  you do know that that affidavit is paperwork and other evidence just ain't applicable unless TI says it is.

and if you don't know about this trap because of some other small issues.... which was me!.... and end up running too close to your exit stamp as this proceeds along..... it is very stressful to rely on "skating by" or appearing out the other end of a rabbit's hole depending on how conservative your figure was.  mine was conservative meaning tight to the 65,000 figure even though in "real life" it is maybe more than twice 65,000.. who knows?  in fact, one year I actually met the Consul General in person who came down to see the unknown American billionaire who had an income affidavit stating a pension income of 90,000 US Dollars a month..... except it was me and I had no idea why the Consul General had special handled my affidavit...... until a few days later at Chiangmai Immigration I almost fell over when I was asked "do you really have $ 90,000 a month in pension income"? 

if you don't get it, I can't even think in dollars anymore.  only Baht.  even when swearing to a form that says dollars on it.  and no, I am not an idiot.  I think pretty normal.  what's idiotic is asking for a single magic number, in US dollars, for a monthly pension income figure that is totally unknowable by even me, let alone my government.  except as a estimate and since using "90,000" I became conservative.

IN THE USA..... no one would apply the current exchange rate to a figure placed on a 4 month old affidavit.  that is called the "matching principle" in western accounting which is almost as important as being "conservative" in estimating income.  but in Thailand a simple procedure, and an assumption of "foreigners" always must know what their magical fixed monthly pension... and as well as that in their home currency..... means you could find yourself relying on a "just skating by" or "rabbits hole" solution.... which works..... as you get nearer to your extension due date apparently...... and is almost as stressful as anything I have ever experienced.  that is no joke at all 20 years in rural Northern Thailand.... if I was in Bangkok or the City of Chiangmai and traveled home alot and stuff... maybe not so terrified.  for me, it was horrific. 

39 minutes ago, sfokevin said:

Since your short 1,400/month x 12 = 16,800... If you could show a Thai bank balance in a checking account of 16,800 or more for 3 months prior you should be able to use the combo method and skate by?...

hmmm.... thank you.  I get by pretty slim with bank balances, just paid off my annual Aetna card  and other things.  but yeah, I forgot.... you mean the combination thing?  wow, I have to rethink this... I guess that's what my wife and the immigration officer have been talking about.... but something is still not right.  and even when I get this sorted out..... I stopped by the US Consulate and they would not even let me talk to anyone... all I was allowed to do is call a number at which I was not talking to an American nor when I called Bangkok.... and was given an email option.  which when I got home I found an computer printed blurb.... that they would not nothing to help me.

how I was treated by the USA.  I thought I am not a red, white and blue guy but..... I had no idea how let down I would feel about this thing... and I do... in the USA we have computers and excellent software and for 99% of us they can verify our damn income in a few seconds if they wanted to.  I have a 1099-R that Immigration wanted to see... but without the affidavit..... it's quite disheartening... the US Consulate can check that in 2 seconds.  or my Schwab account. for damn sure.

my dad served with MacArthur.  I just missed going to Vietnam.  I have always paid my taxes 100%.  

what are they here for? 

they run a trillion dollar deficit now... and they can't so something simple to support us?  but man oh man if it comes to bombing the crap out of some place in the world look out!!!!!!  this ramps that up.  we have been let down. seriously.  what are they here for? 

USA retiree.  last year $30,000 pension distribution.  remitted to Bangkok Bank by SWIFT, shows in bank book but.....  as soon as it got here most of it went to Bualuang Securities to put it to work.  yeah, next year I will keep money in the bank.  In November before the window closed I swore early to $2,052 a month, I could have said $2,500 but I usually would swear to just enough plus a buffer because..... I'm a moron.  but this time was 4 months ahead of normal because of our wonderful government change on income affidavits.....as a retired IRS enrolled agent/accountant I couldn't imagine Immigration would use TODAY's exchange rate.  that does not match up to the FX rate at the time of the distribution.  normally not a difference, but I had cut it too close.   so I lose my 2004 Non-O visa that until now I had never had a problem with and I am otherwise a man without a country.  no way Jose, I go back to the USA.  what are my options?  put 800K in Bangkok Bank as soon as I can... but for two months, do I have that right too? 2 months I do what while the money is seasoned?????

2052 * 31.0 = 63,600 not GT 65K.  using TODAY's rate.  and cannot get another affidavit.

the Immigration officer and I never addressed this directly as I let my Thai wife get the issue confused (got me confused), they kept talking about transferring money and paying for an overstay...  and I didn't figure out the FX rate is TODAY's rate until just now getting some free advice from one of those visa agents, one near the new Subway in Hand Dong.  but she told me to hope the USA would correct my letter.  I just found out the USA won't do a thing to help me. 

there is no 2 month grace or something for a guy who has had his nose clean for almost 20 years.  same rural area and another reason I am confused, several days up at 4AM because of the traveling to Chiangmai on this.   so a little panicked as well as not thinking so great. 

Thailand has no jurisdiction over US banks, insurance companies or government agencies, so except thru a reciprocal agreement under FATCA, there is no way for an American in Thailand, or the Thai government to compel any disclosure that would verify an American's "pension income".  so the only exception is things like US Social Security deposited directly with Bangkok bank, and similar such arrangements because of course BBL is a Thai bank!  and that's the bottom line.

printed bank statements are not proof or verifiable without having jurisdiction over the reporter.
 

bank secrecy for example is why we took the extraordinary and quite-un American [to older generations at least it was] in UNSC resolution 2371 where we named 9 inner circle DPRK money launderers, by passport and drivers license numbers because breaking bank secrecy is almost impossible to be broken from the outside.  on purpose.

unless there are clear guidelines we can comply with, the "income method" for Americans to keep a retirement visa is always going to be quite problematic.  aside from the Social Security direct deposit..... I don't see how that can be done.  the US government is the only agency that could do this effectively and fairly and consistently.  they are refusing.  but know this.... the IRS certainly knows who has pension income and who doesn't, 100% for sure!!!!!  

I mean simply, on my earlier post, and I don't know if it's okay to say the name but I am talking about Aetna (which was BUPA).... my main reason for having it is that I invest in Thai counters, with tax refunds.  I don't want to keep even as little a million in a retail bank.... and even went so far as to have a Aetna or BUPA card for many years... so that I don't have to worry about not having immediately ready cash for inpatient expenses (and never by the way outpatient which is never at all expensive).  so next year, I cancel my insurance... before I get old and they do anyways, no matter what they say today about always insuring me.  I lost my reason if I have to have a million in the bank most of the time.  Cpat Clinic and Chiangmai Ram know me as a customer already and it would be easy to sign a paper unless my head is konked in. which is unlikely for me, i.e. I drive a 4x4 not a scooter.  

Just now, Sheryl said:

Are they not also looking for transfers into your bank account? My impression was that they were doing both.  (which er the rules is unnecessary as bank transfers suffice).

yes, but the one about asking for a 1099 is absolutely silly.   also, I don't understand [at all] why they can't accept a BBL bank book with "FTT" as sufficient proof.  are Thai bank books so easily forged?  and a person at Immigration applying for an extension would chance forging one???? why not just accept the bank book with "FTT" in it?  why a letter and a statement from the bank.. which for me is not in the "weahaung"... it's a long drive to get back home and then back to the city of Chiangmai again... worse, it's at the airport now and a lot of traffic [which I do at my home bank branch office]. 

while I wait for full age retirement or later at age 67 or 70 something [US Social Security in addition to my other pensions I already live on] and easily assume at some point the BBL direct deposit will be all I will need to satisfy Immigration for a retirement visa... at age 67 or 70.... they have just blown the doors off my need for Thai health coverage.  I have a XXXXX card for Thailand.  it does not cover travel outside Thailand. and I already have had several things done at Cpat Clinic at Suandok and Chiangmai Ram and Phayao Ram.  if I need to keep at least 400,000 in a retail bank account all the time, and I up it to a million or so.... except for providing a hospital with a known intermediary, my insurance card just lost it's main advantage.  and as I get older they will cancel or make it too expensive anyways.  I have had an XXXXX card, used to have a British name, for 15 years.... so that I don't have to have a big balance in a Thai retail bank account.  unless I am so "non ambulatory" I cannot sign a power of attorney, if I have a million sitting at the ready in a bank book under my name only.... what the heck do I want to keep with my Thai health cover any longer????                

Chiangmai Immigration today for myself as well as at least one other American was using 1099's to verify retirement income.  this will not last very long.  a 1099 is merely an "information filing", easily printed off on line or completed by yourself and 100% legal as such.  it is only verified when the data is matched by a "magnetic tape" [internet transmitted data today I would guess, for sure] received by the IRS from that FEIN filer.  it is nothing more than a piece of paper.  meaning, easy for us to use now... but it won't be used for very long.  it's really only so that an honest taxpayer doesn't forget an item, stapling them to a 1040 is for that "forget me not" purpose and not a thing else.  let alone providing them to anyone... the IRS or anyone else verifies nothing at all.  I am x-enrolled IRS as well as a MS Tax from Golden Gate.    

obviously guessing, but once Immigration can figure out how to make it more fair, that Bangkok Bank has a special relationship with US Social Security, and those monthly payments for most folks when direct deposited using the rules set up for Bangkok Bank exclusively (for the same reason import agents are exclusive), for most Americans mean not needing to do more than fill out a TM7 once a year.  what did I get wrong or miss?  at some point a few months or years ahead.  and that's a heck of a lot of Americans.