chiang mai

There doesn't seem to be any reason for the OP to change his visa, simple keep it and only spend 179 days here. If he's here for less than 180 days per year, he wont be tax resident so Thai tax is not an issue.

Stamps in your passport. Even 5 minutes still counts as a day.

Yet another foreign tourism related incident. If the tourists would have stayed home, there would be no need for the tourist van and the poor man wouldn't have driven into the water. Tourists must pay for the damage, I suggest another tax.

Exactly. Another is the house is covered but the foundations aren't, unless they were inspected at the time they were installed and approved. That pretty much wipes out the potential for any earthquake coverage.

It is/was a fact that airline pilots in a major Thai airline were required to hold two positions, one as a pilot and one within the corporate structure of the airline, performing admin/management roles. It was for this reason that the CAA/ICAO or its equivalent, rated airline safety quite low, because pilots were often too fatigued to fly. Perhaps the same is true of Air Marshalls, dunno.

I finally stopped buying house insurance here, even though it is only 5k per year. The house is not covered for storm damage, if the storm is announced in advance by the weather people, just one example of get out clauses in their policies. @kickstart please note

I suspect this is a tourism issue where foreigners are to blame. If foreigners hadn't flown to Thailand, the noise and vibration of plane traffic wouldn't have caused the roof to weaken prematurely and allow water ingress that caused the ceiling to collapse, ergo, foreigners must pay. Another visitor tax may be in order, an airport building premature aging tax maybe?

An extremely talented athlete. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simone_Biles

BOT operates a managed float rate, that means they intervene in markets to avoid volatility and smooth out the peaks and toughs of the exchange rate. The managed floating rate system is often nicknamed the dirty or cheaters exchange rate regime, because it is neither fixed nor completely free and intervention is possible at any time. This contrasts with a fixed exchange rate against USD or free floating rate that adjusts according to market supply and demand. Thailand is an export led economy where over 60% of GDP is derived from exports, trade bills for which are settled in USD. It's therefore in their best interests to try to keep the baht within a range that suits both exports and imports, the latter being important since Thailand imports most of its oil. BOT maintained low interest rates during covid at a time when other countries were battling inflation and had rates twice as high as Thailand. That strategy has put them at a disadvantage because it has inhibited inbound foreign direct investment but has been advantageous in that costs and inflation here have been less than they otherwise would be. Now, as USD rates start to come down, Emerging and Developing Market currencies will grow stronger as USD weakens, that is a natural consequence that includes THB. Whilst the PM wants BOT to lower rates, the central bank is in nor rush to lower them, especially since Thai exports are currently excellent value.

That would make perfect sense of his answer.

I also struggled with that term, "Thai income", I couldn't decide if he meant income from Thai people only or income from within Thailand only. But since Por 161 is aimed at overseas income, it can't be that. And since we know that foreigners are not exempt from tax in Thailand.....you see the quandary with the statement I've been filing taxes here since about 2012. For the first few years I let the TRD people do it for me but after a while I got the hang of what was involved and I started to do it myself. In the first year, I only had pension income, my deductions, TEDA in TRD speak, were enough to cover the funds that I remitted to Thailand so the TRD staff told me, no tax to pay. In the second year of filing, I had unusually high pension income and I calculated I did have some tax to pay, which I didn't object to. In subsequent years I mostly stayed under the threshold for paying tax but a couple of times I miscalculated and ended up paying a couple of thousand baht because I took SIPP income also. In my case, there is no other action taken, I file, I pay or don't pay and that's it. .

I think an Area Office oversees Regional offices, which are also known as District offices. If that is correct, the Area Office should be a reliable source of information. But that's not to say that everyone who works at an Area Office is fully familiar with all aspects of tax! The quoted statement is confusing because we know for a fact that income from non-Thai's is assessed plus we know pensions are assessed. https://www.rd.go.th/english/21972.html

May I ask which TRD office that was?

That's my experience also.

I imagine/believe so but it may be down to DTA wording. In my case, I'm a Brit who receives his SSc here in Thailand, minus tax. But if in the UK, no tax is withheld and no need to file a US return. FWIW I expect fully that Trump will move against non resident Green Card holders who receive SSc abroad, I think we're first in the firing line for any new policy to ensure the SSc fund remains viable.

Non resident green card holders who receive their US SSc in Thailand, see 24.5% with holding on all payments. The last time Trump was in office he removed the ability of those people to claim a personal deduction when filing a return, which meant the SSc payment was taxable but not reclaimable.

As things stand presently, the maxi8mum UK State Pension is 221 Pounds per week, the sum of which is less than the annual Personal Allowance hence it cannot yet be taxed on a stand alone basis. Maintaining the triple lock whilst freezing the PA is a political land mine and will be an own goal, because that will mean the UK State Pension is capable of being taxed, in its own right.

I agree with 99% of what you wrote but I'm uncertain about the MH speech being the reason for the fall on 17 July. I looked for other economic events of that date but couldn't see anything meaningful. The BOE rate change was dated 1 Aug. I do however note that USD moved against other currencies on or about that date but as said, I can't find what news was released to cause that....it would be interesting to understand. EDIT TO ADD: This may be it, on 17 July, stronger than expected US sales data reaffirmed to markets that the Fed would cuts rates sooner rather than later, various indices jumped accordingly https://finance.yahoo.com/news/stock-market-news-jul-17-133600063.html

I think the following provides a good explanation.

I think TRD will disregard the 25% tax free status, just as they disregard the UK Personal Allowance, why should that matter to them.

Perhaps the following will help? "You would pay tax in the country you are tax resident. For a UK government pension these are normally still liable in the UK. if you are referring to a state pension then this can be exempt but you need to make a formal application for relief. Please see guidance here: Double Taxation: UK - Spain (Form Spain-Individual) Thank you." https://community.hmrc.gov.uk/customerforums/pt/cc551648-67f5-ed11-a81c-6045bd0ba09e HMRC appears to make a clear distinction between government and state pensions and their ability to be taxed.

It's almost impossible to avoid global markets contagion these days, I don't think there is much protection for the average investor outside of constantly buying an array of puts. The downturn that started on Wednesday/Thursday combined regional markets response to YEN movements and was quickly followed by the US unemployment report. The only upside potential at that point was to be in the right kind of bonds but even that hasn't mitigated the extent of the falls that are likely. The question now is, what instruments/markets have the shortest time to recovery, EM might be a good starting point given a weaker USD.

I didn't care for your graph at all so I thought it sensible to post one that portrays reality! As you can easily see, the value of THB did improve following the 2014 coup but subsequent external events weakened the currency pair. https://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=USD&to=THB&view=10Y

I only held my policy for two years, prior to that and subsequently I was/am self funded. I only took out the policy because of visa extension concerns, which didn't materialise anyway.

I dropped my CIGNA policy two years ago, at age 73 the premiums were 150k per year, plus a US 5k deductible and a 400k baht co-pay........and of course there were plenty of exclusions.