PingRoundTheWorld

It's not that simple. I pay nearly 50% tax on income in my home country, which has a DTA with Thailand. So even if it was deemed "income" we now enter the murky waters of DTA and how it will be applied: if tax credits - how do you calculate the tax credit for the small portion remitted to Thailand - is it based on my highest marginal rate? lowest rate? entire sum paid in taxes?? or will Thailand want me to pay full (Thai) tax on the remitted sums and go knocking on my home country's doors for a refund of those amounts? That's kind of the whole point- I don't think I'll legally owe more tax either way - it's just the complexity and filing I want to avoid. Again remains to be seen if and how this is enforced...

Depends on the bank. Some limit to 20k, Bangkok Bank ATMs 25k, Krungsri ATMs 30k. Probably some more with higher limits but I'm sure you can find one of those two anywhere.

Source? Whether ATM withdrawals and paying for goods and services with an overseas credit card will be considered remittance is hugely important (for those of us who use foreign cards for the majority of their expenses). Which also brings the question- how do you "decide" if a credit card purchase/ATM withdrawal is income or not? I could pay the credit card bill with income, or I could pay for it with savings. It would be difficult to keep records and prove it either way.

Which hospital?

Then how do you know it was Dengue? (seriously asking, I don't think I've ever had it)

I will never understand why some foreigners choose to live in Thai villages with zero security. Almost every time you hear about a neighbor going stabby or a foreigner getting robbed it's at some village out in nowhereville. I'm sure it did happen.. sometime.. but I can't recall hearing about someone getting randomly stabbed by their neighbor in a condo. Better security, actual security guards (when they're not asleep), and less easy access (if you don't open the door nothing will happen). For those of you who live in villages/houses - do you actually feel safe??

This. People come to Thailand because it's (somewhat) seedy and unpredictable and the image of "anything can happen", or what you call character. Their past efforts to make it a wholesome family friendly destination are completely the wrong direction - western families have plenty of closer, cheaper places to go on vacation - why would an American family choose to fly 24 hours to Phuket when they can fly 4 hours to Puerto Rico, and they don't even have to worry about visa or currency exchange. For people to prefer to Thailand over other destinations there needs to be a differentiating factor, and that differentiating factor is character - and I'm not even talking about prostitution and all that - just the feeling that you're coming to a place where anything goes is exactly what young people want. Families won't come anyway - it's young couples and single people (all ages) Thailand should be aiming at. A great example of them suffocating tourism is their insistence on regulating nightlife closing hours. Bangkok still hasn't nearly recovered fom pre-Covid levels and tourist nightlife have crowds which are a fraction of what they used to be as a result of the 2am curfew. No tourist wants to be told to go home at 2am - so next trip they just won't come - I know many people who used to come every month or two, now they don't come at all because Bangkok is too boring for them. They are (finally!!) taking a step in the right direction with allowing nightlife (in designated areas) to open until 4am, however that is too little too late, and it still doesn't address major tourist areas in Bangkok like Nana/Asoke and soi 11, and Thong Lor - which are NOT allowed to open later under the new rules. There is a very limited number of tourist venues which will be allowed in Ratchadapisek and Silom, but the grand majority of venues affected are actually local Thai (RCA, Ratchadapisek are predominently Thai). Whoever made the rules clearly does not understand the tourist nightlife market at all.

While Thailand may want them (*their money), less Chinese means better treatment and lower prices for those of us who aren't Chinese. Don't legalize gambling! Taiwanese are great- they're basically like Japanese who speak Chinese A lot of them are highly educated and well mannered. Bring 'em on!

Not everybody has a great pension plan that adjusts for inflation. With my pension plan it's almost guaranteed it will be eroded by inflation. Not to mention I could only start pulling reduced benefits at 60, or 67 if I want full benefits. I do have other investments that I expect will far outweigh my pension, but for those too I will have to actively manage them to make sure they outpace inflation - it's not automagic - I'd think on the contrary, most pension and like-pension plans (savings) people have aren't protected against inflation.

Yeah no kidding. Ludicrously overpriced. I have a friend who got admitted there for another condition (also was on the brink) - he survived but had to sell an apartment(!) to fund his hospital bills. Out of curiosity- if one were to be in critical condition, where would you recommend they go/get admitted to? can a government hospital be trusted? are there private hospitals that won't cost you an apartment or a kidney?

By not declaring I mean declaring it as sourced from savings, gift, or other source that isn't income. Assuming we'll actually be required to file tax returns if we don't have taxable income - that remains to be seen.

Bingo. This whole system is unrealistic and relies on people coming forward and declaring that the source of the money is income from the same year. Very few will actually do it, and anyone who can will avoid (not evade) it.

Yeah, it's quite a wonder how they want tourists to stay longer, yet they do everything they can to make sure visas are short. Simply changing from 30 day to 90 day visa waivers will by itself encourage longer stays, and if they allow 90 day extensions on top of that they'll get plenty more European winter crowd (they already get some, but the visa hassle is for sure keeping some away).

A Thai national living abroad is not a Thailand tax resident, therefore income tax does not apply. Gift tax won't apply either since it's not a large enough sum. Bottom line: a Thai overseas worker who lives there for more than half of the year won't have to pay Thai taxes on money they send their family. If you want to complicate this further: What if you gifted (transferred) money to a Thai person's overseas bank, then they transferred it to Thailand? It cannot possibly be income to them since it was a gift, and it's not bringing money into Thailand for you, since it's not you who transferred it to Thailand. Of course it all depends on how Thai RD and courts interpret such events, but likely they won't bother with small amounts. Some good news I read today was that on Nov 20 they clarified that any income made before 2024 will NOT be subject to the new rule. So any savings you accumulate before the end of the year will not be taxable next year regardless of when you transfer it (but you should probably be prepared to show/prove you had those savings on Dec 31...)

They thought thieves broke into their house as money and valuables kept going missing for several days, when they finally found the missing items they realized that mice had "stolen" it and moved it around, not thieves. Moral of the story: keep your money in the bank - not in the ceiling, and gold is not a savings account.

It wouldn't be statuory rape either way since she's 17 and 10 months, not 14, but she couldn't prove there was sex anyway, because there wasn't. She didn't claim sex - she claimed sexual assault. They got to the hotel around 3am and by 4:30am she already managed to take pictures of him sleeping, call her friends to pick her up, and file charges with police - that's not a whole lot of time which certainly makes his side of the story seem valid. He claims that he did not think she was underage when taking her to his room, they started messing around and he undressed her, but when she told him her ID was fake/doctored and she's actually 17 he came to his senses and told her they will not have sex but she can just sleep, and he went to sleep himself. She took pictures of him sleeping as "evidence", and called her friends to pick her up, after which they went to police. Ironically, if they did have sex and she didn't "regret" it - it wouldn't be a crime - the "crime" here is that she regretted whatever happened. The whole ordeal is ridiculous considering she's 17 and 10 months - not a child. Old enough to fake an ID and go drinking, clearly knew what she was doing and what was going to happen, and the age is so close to 18 that it's just a technicality.

Nitrous oxide is commonly used to make whipped cream. The hundreds of "tanks" they seized are just finger-sized whipped cream chargers that are placed in whipped cream dispensers and used one at a time to inflate balloons. Generally unless the person has other medical conditions inhaling a few of those won't cause any long-lasting harm, but habitual heavy use can cause all sorts of bad things including damaging the nerve system. IMHO they should spend more time/resources in educating the public about the dangers of habitual use than try to control/prevent use which is impossible. Busting a single shop won't do anything when every other bar is selling these.

And here's what that law actually says: “modern drug” means a drug intended for use in the practice of modern medicine or healing arts or the cure of an animal disease; Section 12. No person shall produce or sell a modern drug or import or order a modern drug in to the Kingdom, unless he or she has obtained a licence from the licensing authority. Section 101. Any person who violates section 12 shall be liable to imprisonment for a term of not exceeding five years and to a fine not exceeding ten thousand baht. It's referring to something like an unlicensed pharmacist selling you medicinal drugs. Nitrous oxide is not a medicinal drug and not regulated as such - it is commonly used to make whipped cream and openly sold as such with no restrictions. While police can certainly charge someone with selling it as a "medicinal drug", it will probably not hold in court. It's not a regulated drug therefore not covered by drug laws prohibiting recreational use, but also isn't a medicine therefore not covered by the medicine act above. What they have been doing according to some past news articles is giving the vendor arbitrary small fines and letting them go without charging them. If I'm wrong and there has been anyone who's actually been convicted of selling nitrous based on the medicine act I'm open to change my mind, but so far I haven't found any such examples.

Sure doesn't seem like sexual assault. Either she's looking for a payday, or she was offended that he rejected her and decided to take revenge.

You can buy a pack of 10 chargers for ~100 baht at Foodland, Lazada, etc... Gotta wonder what they're actually going to charge him with, considering it's not a controlled substance. Or is it?? I don't see it on the list, but I may be looking at the wrong list (narcotics).

Can you file online if you still have a previous fine pending? asking for a friend. FWIW I exited Thailand with the fine pending and returned since, but now a new 90-day report is due soon so not sure if they'll let me file it online or not. P.S. I actually tried to file online on the 91st day - they held the application for a week, then rejected it "please come to immigration office" essentially ensuring I will have to pay a fine. Not sure if it was held on purpose or just very slow processing - but poor experience either way.

Still clear as mud. Reading the DTA legalese it's still unclear to me which country you're actually supposed to be taxed in if you're a tax resident in Thailand but receive income that is taxed in your home country because it is derived there.

Has your lifestyle and/or location changed though? (less expenses?) As far as I remember from other posts you live a rather relaxed lifestyle with a live-in rental gf. Naturally expenses are low with such a lifestyle. Try to go out to clubs in Bangkok/Pattaya/Phuket a few times a week with take outs and 60k will barely last you a week. What really has gone up in price in Bangkok since I moved here (2016) is booze, food, and....girls. Pattaya price increases for all of the above seems to be more moderate, but even there there's definitely been changes since.

I like to drink with friends and play around with girls much younger than me. How can I leverage this into a workhobby? (I guess the obvious answer would be open my own venue - except the kind of places I like to hang out would be expensive, and require a lot of connections/tea money/etc which I wouldn't want to deal with) (though I sometimes do wonder- with the amount of money I and my friends spend on alcohol alone we could easily finance a bar.. maybe when we're older, lol)

You lifestyle may vary, but even today 100k/mo is bare minimum I'd recommend to someone to live in Thailand. It allows for a good living with modest entertainment. But what happens in 10 years when inflation pushes prices up and your 100k don't buy quite as much anymore? what happens in 20 years? 30 years? at age 40 you have to worry about these things if you retire that early. Even older retirees are struggling with inflation and currency fluctuations (strong baht/weak retirement currency). At 200k/mo you can have a great lifestyle, and are much more future proof in case of currency fluctuations or inflation. I'd personally choose to work a few more years and retire with a clear mind than retire early with an uncertain future (imagine having to go back to work when you're 60!). But it doesn't have to be now or in 10 years. You can work 5 years or however many more years you feel like - 150k/mo should be pretty solid too, it doesn't have to be double or nothing.