Time Traveller

16 minutes ago, OneMoreFarang said:

5 years old is also a child.

Are they all the same for you? What's your point? 

Do you have learning problems?   Seriously read the posts.   

Several comments claimed that the age of consent is 15 years old in Thailand.   I replied that the Thai age of consent is meaningless because 15 years is illegal for visitors in Thailand. 15 years old is considered a child in most western countries.  Therefore anyone (such as you) trying to downplay the seriousness of involvement with a 15 year old should probably know that the law thinks differently.

And yes, they are all the same. Anyone under 18 is a child. Maybe predators want to think differently

On 5/11/2024 at 8:52 PM, OneMoreFarang said:

What a stupid comment.

Look up the definition of "pedos" and you should be able to find out that >=15 has nothing to do with that.

I suggest just control your own behavior and don't give useless advice to other people. 

15 years old is a child.   

Oh this old chestnut again.    Well sorry to burst the bubble of all the sexpats and sex tourists but unless you are a Thai citizen it don't matter what the legal age of consent in Thailand is.   

You can quote all the Thai laws you want but the only thing that matters is what the legal age of consent is in your own country, because virtually all western countries have sex tourism laws that target their own citizens who travel to other countries like Thailand to have sex with young children that they otherwise would not be able to legally do in their own country.   

So if you think the Thai law that says 15 years old is fine, then you are potentially committing a crime in your home country that could put you in prison for decades.   So even if the courts can't prosecute you here, you can be sure of one thing, the Thai's love handing pedos over to Western law enforcement.

On 5/9/2024 at 6:22 AM, Captain Monday said:

There is no direct immigration processing outbound but every time you show ID at airport security name goes thru the system just like traffic stops

Guess they were not looking for him yet

 

People get stopped at airports all the time just because they have the same or similar name as a wanted person or crim.
 This the need for redress numbers 

Well I don't know about that, I've never seen it happen.

But whenever I travel to Mexico there is no outbound check and no inbound check on the Mexico side either.    I suspect the only passport check at the airport is that your name matches the airticket / boarding pass.

15 hours ago, RobU said:

The post was asking how he got out of the US not how did he get into Thailand. Surely he should have been flagged as wanted and arrested at the US airport when he tried to leave

Well I thought the question was strange because there are no checks on anyone leaving USA.    So why would he have been stopped?

1 hour ago, Mbolo said:

I’ve been living/visiting for 50 years and I never once saw a census official . How do they make up these figures ? 

I vaguely remember a census form years ago that we had to fill out

On 10/13/2023 at 8:26 PM, Longwood50 said:

Ok perhaps this is a stupid question but lets say I have income in the USA of $100,000 per year and I pay taxes on that income and don't bring it into Thailand but rather have it remain in the USA. 

Is it the understanding that the new law would make that amount taxable here in Thailand if I reside over 180 days.  

Now what if the money in an account in the USA is savings already taxed in the USA and that money is brought into Thailand for living expenses.  That money is not "income" 

What is the situation with Social Security.  I read conflicting statements with some saying Thailand could tax the social security and others saying no if you pay your tax in the USA then none will be owed here in Thailand because of the tax treaty. 

 

The basic answer is that is what it seems will happen.   

The more complicated answer to that question is that it depends upon the type of income you have.  If your income source is covered favorably by the international tax treaty then you can elect to have that taxed only in the US.   Using your example asking about Social Security and other Government pensions, these would be taxable only in USA and so would be exempt from Thai taxes, but only if you make that tax treaty election on your tax filing. (using Form 8833).

Correct, savings is not income. So should not be taxable for just simple transferring it to Thailand.

On 10/10/2023 at 1:40 AM, Sheryl said:

 

Absolutely nothing in the new regulation says this, quite the opposite.

Sheryl, you should probably stop giving tax advice.   

Using just one example, Article 20 Pensions and Social Security Payments, US Thai Tax treaty says it very clearly , quoting

"Paragraph 1 provides that private pensions and other similar remuneration paid in consideration of past employment are generally taxable only in the residence State of the recipient."

It could not be more clearer. Income sourced from USA is taxable only in Thailand if you are a tax RESIDENT in Thailand.  

For Thailand that is Residence based taxation of global income.   Nothing in the code says the income must be remitted into Thailand before it is taxed.   

However, this ruling while it is already on the books, there is one caveat.     Now I'm guessing 99.999999% of all American expats in Thailand have never used the international Tax treaty.   Because the Tax treaty does not automatically apply. You have to declare that you are taking a treaty position with regards to taxes on your tax filing by using form 8833.   

The point is, Thailand almost never taxes this income now. But they want to change that by becoming a Residence based system.

PS..   Just to add additional info.  The above is inclusive of 401k, IRAs, and private pensions.     For Social Security it's different as it states that it is taxable only in the contracting state (as opposed to the residence state), quoting 

"The treatment of social security benefits is dealt with in paragraph 2. This paragraph provides that, notwithstanding the provision of paragraph 1 under which private pensions are taxable exclusively in the State of residence of the beneficial owner, payments made by one of the Contracting States as a social security benefit or similar public pension to a resident of the other Contracting State or to a citizen of the United States will be taxable only in the Contracting State making the payment."

As there is no talk about changing the US Thai tax treaty then SSI will continue to be taxable only in USA......provided that you elect to take a Tax treaty position. (Form 8833).   

Why do you care? 

Or more importantly, if you were there to witness them then why did you not say something to them at the time?   

Instead you took a picture behind their backs, then post to an anonymous forum to complain about how "loud and obnoxious" they were.     Well, hate to tell you this but there is absolutely NOTHING that any of us readers can do about it. 

It was you that had the opportunity to lecture them and educate them about Thai culture.  But you didn't.

Is your name Karen ?

4 hours ago, AVWB said:

Bragging rights ? If you are a USA citizen, the USA taxes on world wide income, it will not make a difference for you. 

Wrong.  Being a US Citizen who is a tax resident of another country does not make you exempt from taxes in that country. As stated previously there are a few exceptions which are generally related to pension or social security income that is sourced from USA. Other types of income such as salaries, investment income, capital gains, royalties, rents would like still be considered as taxable income in the country where you live.  

2 hours ago, PJ71 said:

Surely the money you already have before these new rules come in to play cannot be touched?

 

For example if one had say 10m baht in a bank, it cannot be touched if all brought into country before this new set of rules?

Correct. Any accumulated savings or capital is not income so would not be taxed.

If that happened then that's effectively capital controls tax which happened very briefly in (I think) 2007 and was quickly reversed.

On 10/7/2023 at 11:32 PM, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

I haven't read the whole U.S. treaty -- every time I've tried, my eyes glaze over and I fall asleep... So I'm relying on the OP's summary above....

 

Interesting complexity for Americans -- dividends and interest may be taxable if remitted into Thailand under the OP's reading....

 

But what if the source of those divs and interest is from a Roth IRA retirement account in the U.S., which by U.S. law has tax-free distributions in the U.S.?

 

Would  Thailand here be trying to make tax-free U.S. distributions from a U.S. Roth IRA account suddenly taxable in Thailand if remitted there???

 

Possibly.  I don't think that's their intention, but the US international Tax Treaties appear to apply based on residence.  So tax free retirement vehicles in the US suddenly are not tax free if living in Thailand.   

That's not unusual as it seems to be the same for other countries treaties with the US for their retirement accounts.    

On the same day, there's another news story that Thai police are planning on make civilian ownership of firearms more difficult.   

This is precisely the reason civilians should have the right to legally own firearms for self defense.

1 hour ago, ozimoron said:

He might seem to you to be apolitical but his message is decidedly right wing. He appeals to way more people on the right than the left.

You must be extreme leftist if you think Joe Rogan is right wing. 

On 9/3/2023 at 1:04 PM, webfact said:

any foreigner arrested for overstaying their visa, regardless of the duration, faces deportation and a ban from re-entering Thailand for a minimum of five years

Imagine if USA adopted the same strict rules.   There'd be like 20 million people deported

On one hand, it's racist to single out Russians, but on the other hand I suspect many of these Russian people are selfish draft dodgers afraid to protect their motherland from the fascist imperialist goals of Biden's USA thugs.

So, perhaps the best thing for Thailand to do is deport them back to Russia.

13 minutes ago, ianguygil said:

Again, without getting too far into it on a public forum. Thailand is relatively unique in that all these payments and transfers are realtime. The money is gone between parties synchronously. Not a day delay or even a few minutes. as in some markets This combined with the relatively high use of ANDROID and a reasonably low level of customer education/awareness of information security principles, leads to the Thai market being a target for leading edge hackers. The most recent of which was exploiting "Accessibility" (which help people with disabilities).

 

I have great respect for the Thai regulators. They are smart. The hackers are smart. 

Huh?    Clearly the Thai bank regulators are not smart if they have to change the security procedures every few months. If all of the security features are so important, then why do we need more of them?

The answer is, because they are not any stronger than a simple a passcode or PIN