Everyman

14 minutes ago, BangkokAlan said:

Its quite simple once you enter your app and select pay bill you can either use the select payee section where you can set up the payment using your bill contract number or select scan to pay option and scan QR code. Just access your App and have a go. My MEA is set up and paid every month via the App. PEA should be the same.

It should be the same, but it isn’t. MEA is listed, PEA is not.

There was a thread about this a few years ago and people said it was possible with the Kasikorn Bank app, but I would like to know how to do it with the Bangkok Bank app.

Theres something like 5 barcodes and QR codes on the bill and none of them scan. The number for PEA isn’t anywhere on the app. 

Anyway, this month i would like to do it from the Bangkok Bank app instead of 7-11. Does anyone know how to do it?

Can i just enable 5G for free somehow or do i have to buy a new SIM or package or something? I have AIS, a “Net Marathon” SIM with internet purchased a year at a time for 1700 baht per year and an iPhone 12.

I’ve been trying to get my tap to pay card to work but it doesn’t. Which bank is this? Where did you use it?

Also i dont know if you are from the UK but you need tap to pay there to pay for things 

not sure why you want to “put aside opening a Thai account” because that is what you should do 

I can’t believe no one has mentioned it, but try to use a Thai debit card overseas and you will find that people think it’s fake. 

Where is the cheapest place in Pattaya to get an HIV viral load test? I need it for when i visit Bangkok to get my medication from the red cross. 

If they start hauling retirees before the revenue department to prove they paid taxes on their pensions it would be a disaster. I imagine they are tax free in some countries, plus a lot of them would struggle to sort it out and just end up on overstay because they can’t renew their visas.

On 6/14/2022 at 7:23 PM, ballpoint said:

If you're bringing in money that has already had legitimate taxes paid on it from a country with a tax treaty with Thailand, then no problem, you can bring it in any time as long as you have the proof that tax was paid, however, my money comes from tax free investments.  In many years, the taxes I'd have to pay on these if I was a resident of my own country, or many others, are greater than the amount of money I bring into Thailand each year - which is no small amount, so, unless anyone can point me to an investment that consistently gives a far greater than 100% return in a year, I'm not complaining about losing a bit of interest.

 

Alternate options are: 

1. Just transfer as and when required, and hope that you don't get audited, which is what many people do (including myself in the past) - and the vast majority get away with it. But since the Revenue Department are now flagging passports, and the Immigration Department are following up on them, it may be more a case of when rather than if it becomes your turn. 

 

2. Spend less than 180 days in Thailand, and any other country, in a year.  This is an option I'd consider if Thailand ever started trying to tax all overseas income, whether it was transferred here or not.  Maybe five months in Thailand, five in my own country, and two vacationing in others each year.  Or do what I did for much of my working life - alternate four weeks here, four weeks elsewhere, making sure nowhere got up to 180 days in a single year.

 

3. Live by withdrawing from your overseas accounts using ATMs, or foreign credit cards at cashless sales points.  It would be relatively expensive due to fees and generally poorer exchange rates, but, for me, it would be still cheaper than paying taxes.  (And maybe this loophole will be closed as well if banks start reporting multiple withdrawals from foreign ATMs under CRS.  You'd also still have to deposit some of the money in your Thai account if you want to use a local debit card, which would have to be accounted for as well.).

 

4. Move to a country with less stringent tax rules, which unfortunately are becoming fewer and fewer due to increasing global tax fraud and money laundering measures.  There are still some about though.

My money is earned overseas and taxes are paid there, but it goes through an account with a lot of activity and i wouldn’t possibly be able to present paperwork on everything.

I also overpay taxes on thing so i don’t have to pay on another, and that’s allowed by that country. 

food for thought 

2 hours ago, ballpoint said:

That's correct.  If I transferred all the money in January, I'd just have to show a statement for that month - showing that enough money was in there on the 1st.  If I transferred it in, say October, I'd have to show statements for every month up to then, again showing the money was in there on January 1st, and no unaccounted for deposits were made in between.

In practice this seems like it requires a “cushion” of money that may not be collecting very much interest. Very annoying to have to do this.

On 6/11/2022 at 11:28 AM, ballpoint said:

The calendar year proviso is stated by many tax accountants and lawyers here, and does seem to be followed by the Revenue Department, however, there is nothing about this on their website, or any other official documentation I've found. 

 

"Taxpayers are classified into “resident” and “non-resident”. “Resident” means any person residing in Thailand for a period or periods aggregating more than 180 days in any tax (calendar) year. A resident of Thailand is liable to pay tax on income from sources in Thailand as well as on the portion of income from foreign sources that is brought into Thailand. A non-resident is, however, subject to tax only on income from sources in Thailand."

Personal Income Tax | The Revenue Department (English Site) (rd.go.th)

 

As they do accept that it is the case in my district, I'm not complaining, but, unless someone can actually quote a declaration that the "same calendar year" proviso is official, I wouldn't be surprised if they did try and tax all overseas income remitted to Thailand at some point, regardless of what year it was earned.  In fact, with the introduction of CRS, Thailand could well make tax residents declare and pay tax on all overseas income (that wasn't already taxed by a country having a treaty with Thailand), whether it was remitted or not - which is what my own country would do to me if I was still a tax resident there.  I'm not losing any sleep over this, but have considered some options should it eventuate.

 

The Revenue Department can, and do, flag passports of those who they suspect owe them taxes, making it impossible to even do a 90 day report, let alone a visa extension, until it is settled.  I know this from personal experience, and from others who have been in the same boat.  (In my case it was due to my retiring from a job here and converting to a retirement extension.  All necessary taxes were paid, however the Bangkok branch of the Revenue Department wanted to know why I was still in Thailand, but hadn't filed a tax return with them.  The answer was I am now dealing with the office in my home district, and not the Bangkok one, and they obviously don't communicate very well.  The immigration officer in Buriram was very helpful with this, calling the Revenue Department and arguing my case.  He told me that this has happened on a number of occasions, and not just to those who have ever worked in Thailand, with some of them resulting in the passport holder having to file a return and pay tax on money brought into the country before being able to apply for an extension).

 

When I was working here, my company used a multinational accounting firm to deal with the taxes of its expat employees.  Before I retired, I asked for some advice from them on how best to handle continuing to live here by bringing in money earned from overseas tax-free investments.  Their reply was basically if the Revenue Department decide to audit you, which they very well could, they will want to see your bank statement(s) here and you must account for all money deposited into your account, whether from Thailand or abroad.  If you remitted the money from an overseas bank, they want to see statements from that bank showing not only that the account had sufficient funds at the start of the year, but also what was deposited into that account prior to you remitting the money - if you remitted money every month then they'd want to see statements for every month. You must also account for any deposits made over that period, and prove that tax had been paid on them in a country having a tax treaty with Thailand.  I handle this by remitting my year's money supply, from an account in Singapore, over the first half of the year and printing off statements for those months clearly showing nothing has been deposited in the bank over that period.  I highlight and number each transfer and do the same on my local statements.  I then top up that account near the end of the year with money from my investments.  This worked for me when I was flagged by the Revenue Department, and continues to work each year at my local Revenue office.  For anyone thinking this is unwieldy and unneccessary, I say that you may not have needed to do this in the past, but from my own experience, and the words of the immigration officer and tax accountant, it may only be a matter of time before you are called to do it.

 

 

So this works because you are able to show the money was there at the start of the year, with nothing going in between then and your transfer into Thailand? So it’s considered “savings” and you don’t have to account for its origin?

I am looking for a secondary phone to take to the beach or the bar. Here are the parameters 

have a very “smooth” and responsive screen 

cost under 5000 baht 

be a recent model 

have acceptable to good battery life 

would be nice if it was water resistant 

storage doesn’t matter much since it will only have Bolt, Line and messenger loaded. 

thanks 

2 hours ago, OneeyedJohn said:

I always select long term stay in Thailand, not that it makes any difference. Anyway the Thai law regarding transfers happened January 7th, and it only permits transfers of 50,000 + to Kasikorn, Bangkok and SCB.

I transferred £3000 on the 11th January - no problem.

I wonder how long it will take these other banks to notice their lost revenue from international transfers.

Then again, I find banking somewhat mysterious in that they don’t seem to want to make money off of things you would think they would.

The problem is that the residence certificates are addressed to specific banks or offices. They’re not “to whom it may concern.” 

I found this out when i got a letter in Pattaya

31 minutes ago, billd766 said:

I sent the amount through regardless. 

 

Before I did it

 

I looked at KBank and to send through them I needed a KPlus account but I only have a KBiz account and they would not let me open one at that time.

 

I looked at Western Union which is available at most post offices but requires a specific address at the UK end.

 

I opened an account online with Dee Money but I never managed to figure out how to transfer from BBK to Dee and then transfer again to my UK account. For my first transfer Dee would have charged me 250 baht plus BBK fees if any.

 

In the end I had to go to my sub branch at BigC in Kamphaeng Phet to get credit advice notes to prove that I had imported the funds in the first place. That took a little while but was free. Then I went back to the main branch several days later to do the actual transfer.

 

I asked the bank to transfer it (carefully having checked with the Head Office first).

 

You cannot.

 

Yes I can and I have all the documents. The first cashier had no idea and didn;t want to know. He put on his Teflon shouldered jacket and dumped it with someone else. After some 30 minutes of back and forth, one of the backroom ladies came out and took all the papers and another 30 minutes went by and the job was done.

 

Since then I managed to open an international transfer with BBK and I can now do it online on my pc.

 

Was it worth it? It all depends on how much you want to send and how often. It is  handy thing to have as a back up but I wouldn't recommend doing it too often as the cost is around 1,000 to 1,200 baht a time.

 

OTOH it IS a useful thing if you do it through online banking.

okay so now that it’s all set up you can do it from from the mobile banking app right? 

This problem doesn’t exist for iphones, there really aren’t many undeletable apps. The exception is Apple Maps which sucks in Thailand. 

Currently, the oldest iphone that’s still getting OS updates was released 7 years ago. 

Anyway..if you don’t want bloatware that’s your ticket. Don’t worry about storage, SD cards, etc.  just subscribe to cloud storage for $1USD a month you get an extra 50GB that integrates pretty seamlessly and you can back up from that if anything happens.

I have a picture of a guy who stole my phone in Cambodia because he took a picture of himself with it and it uploaded the photo to icloud automatically!

Ive heard Pixel phones don’t have much bloatware.  

9 hours ago, ubonjoe said:

That is correct since your will already have a ID number. Getting one is what makes the first one difficult.

 

will they give me the same one as the one on my Thai vaccination record? It’s 13 digits and starts with a 6.

Okay so I get the impression from these comments that it is easier get a new tabien banh for a new address than it is getting one the first time. 

I need a tambien banh (yellow book) but would like to register it to one address, and then move shortly after. It is easier to change addresses than to get one in the first place? What is required to change address? 

Thanks 

You don’t need a shop to clone an iphone. Just reset it and when you set it up again it will give you an option to copy itself from an existing phone. No cables needed either.

On 3/31/2022 at 1:06 PM, ThaIrish Sean said:

Give it to your stepson, he will know more about the phone than you do anyway.

it’s probably garbage 

I just use my Thai debit card and it works fine.

Is Rabbit Line pay the same Line pay system used in Japan? I’ll be going to Japan in a few months and would like to have multiple cashless avenues of payment available.

2 hours ago, mtls2005 said:

You could of course just read the post and move on, fighting that urge to share your "wisdom" about how cash is king, and technology is doomed.

 

Unless, of course, you could help the OP.

 

 

But I did love your "space-pen" yarn. Haven't heard that one in eons.

 

 

 

 

The space pen yarn isn’t true anyway. 

This thread prompted me to try setting up TrueMoney. It wouldn’t scan my passport either.

People have said they are useless, but they have also been replaced. Thai QR code, credit card and debit card.