nigelforbes

You need to get over that or else it's not worth being here. In over 20 years I've never had a problem on this score, the media likes to highlight these stories because they sell copy, whether or not it's a serious risk is another story.

I think so too. Last night I made my first visit to San Sai public hospital after stepping on a rusty nail buried in a piece of wood. Injection to numb the foot, open the wound to explore and clean out any debris, close, bandage, tetanus shot, five day course of antibiotics plus Tylenol, 197 baht, all in! Excellent care and all very professional, i would have been 6k at RAM, easy.

Yes I agree, so logically, HMRC doesn't know how much I recieved, only how much they paid to Citibank. Cool, that's my answer....thanks, all done.

Thank you for your efforts but it seems you don't know either. Let me repeat the question, slightly differently, just in case somebody else does know: I receive my UK State pension every month, it is paid directly into my bank in Thailand, in Thai Baht, minus any bank charges. I do not know how much they send although I can calculate this approximately but this is not good enough for a tax return. I must file a tax return because I have other UK and non-UK income that I have to report but I cannot do this using online self assessment because I am not UK tax resident. Should I report the THB actually received, converted to GBP using HMRC conversion rates or will HMRC notify me of the amount they have paid me (US SSc does the latter).

Great answers guys thanks, but ya'll need to go back and read the question again!

Then you are good to go! Just make sure you remit USD and let the receiving bank in Thailand make the currency exchange. Perhaps a good idea if your wife has a copy of the marriage certificate so the bank can make the connection between the old and new names. AND, I guess you will get a marriage visa? If that's the case, YOU need 400K in a Thai bank account, in your own name, NOT in a joint account (unless you're going to use the income method).

Neither have I, in the past. But new Money Laundering laws have come into effect and AMLO is getting tighter on these things so it may well be that the OP is asked about the source of funds. As long as there is a paper trail showing where the funds did originate and it can be proven, if asked, all will be well.

Yes and yes The tax is wiitheld automatically, you need an ID to file a return and reclaim it.

Withholding tax on bank interest, almost everyone pays it and they are used to foreigners asking for an ID so they can reclaim it.

This year will be the first time I file a UK tax return where the UK State Pension has been remitted directly to my bank in Thailand. My question is: which figure to use for the return, the actual amount received (which is minus any bank charges) or does DWP send something out that shows the total figure? TIA

Can you say, one of the very best?

Yes, there is an official PM's residence but it is little used: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phitsanulok_Mansion#:~:text=Phitsanulok Mansion (Thai%3A บ้านพิษณุโลก,government house in Dusit%2C Bangkok.

Somebody mentioned that USD/THB will move to 32 as a result of the recent forecast that the BOT rate will increase by 0.25 on Wednesday. In fact, the rate increases have already been factored in and are reflected in current values, mostly because the increases were telegraphed well in advance. That fact notwithstanding, USD does seem to be weakening quite steeply against the Baht and has been for much of this year, as seen below. So yes, 32 is in our future but not necessarily because of the rate increase.

Is this what they call an escort service?

Because another poster queried it, I did some more digging to reconfirm how BOT classifies Tourism. This may not seem like an important issue but it does help to understand more accurately what people are talking about when they say, "Exports". I was taught and have always known Tourism to be an export, the WTO, the UN and World Bank agrees, but it seems BOT may do things differently. The BOT current account is a component of the Balance of Payments reporting and not unlike everyone else's bank current account. It is the repository for all financial inputs and the source of all outbound payments and is linked below: .https://www.bot.or.th/App/BTWS_STAT/statistics/BOTWEBSTAT.aspx?reportID=646&language=eng The two main Current Account headings are Goods and Services. Goods comprises exports whilst Services comprises a whole host of categories including construction, Financial Services and Telecommunications. An article in The Diplomat (linked below) persuades me that BOT classifies Tourism as a Service hence it is not reported under exports, as I previously said. Apologies for any confusion. The article in the Diplomat is worth reading regardless because it reconfirms many of the other aspects mentioned thus far, in particular the gap between imports and exports, current account surplus and foreign currency flows. Note: one of the problems with defining Tourism as a Service is that things such as hotel and cost of travel by international tourists is not separate from domestic consumption. Although it must be at some level because those things are reported separately elsewhere. If anyone else can shed light on this, I'll be pleased to hear. https://thediplomat.com/2022/11/why-thailands-current-account-returned-to-surplus-in-september/ https://www.unwto.org/global/press-release/2019-06-06/exports-international-tourism-hit-usd-17-trillion https://www.wto.org/english/forums_e/public_forum17_e/s36_Anton_Said.pdf

Yes, I got it back to front, sorry. The Endoscopy (up the b*m) was 26K whilst the Gastroscopy (throat and stomach) was 18K, the package was 36K if both done together. Expect prices to be at least 10% higher this year.

I didn't notice that I posted the wrong link, sorry! There's another link that comprises spreadsheets that contain the formatted raw data at a granular level. From those sheets it's easy to see how many people boarded and deplaned, how many were transits, domestic, international, Thai, foreign etc., all the information you need is right there I guess the report I did post is derived from those sheets. I have no special reason to try and track down that link plus I have other more pressing things to do but others might have time and want to, it's under AOT somewhere. You might start with, "Thailand AOT passenger movements report by airport 2022", or similar. I did reconcile the TAT figures once which that spreadsheet allows you to do, it turned out their numbers did have a basis in fact. and I got very close the 14 million they claimed. But you also have to factor in the other airports that are not AOT operated and which operate intentional flights.

Yes, I agree. It was telling that in September he wrote about falling Currency Reserves and even referenced BOT's failed support of the Baht in 1997. He went on to say that he would have to see what the next set of figures looked like but he never mentioned the subject again, very very clearly he was satisfied with BOT's explanation.

I don't believe so. I have a tax ID, sometimes I file a tax return, some years I don't, it depends on the level of my income in Thailand but nobody ever asks me why I haven't filed.

I don't know where you got those prices from but the combination endoscopy and colonoscopy (or round trip as they like to call it) at RAM was 36,000 as a package in February last year. The Endoscopy alone is 26,000.

I will be surprised if it does, I think the increase is already built in because it has been well advertised for a long time. That said, I also agree that USD/THB will strengthen to 32 although not as a direct cause of the rate increase. USD continues to weaken, the DI is already down to 102%. The Baht would see 32 regardless of what the BOT does at this stage....I think.

I used to fly from HK into China regularly, Cathay Pacific/Dragon Air ground staff had all on to try to control the hoards of Chinese passengers who were returning home. As soon as the announcement was made, Business Class passengers may board now, vrooom, and they're off. Eventually it got to a point where barriers and screens were erected between economy and business seating at the gate and business class passengers were told individually to board now. In Guangzhou, the flight to Beijing was unassigned seating, the stews just moved out the way and let them get on with it, chickens in cages and all! Great sport.

I have limited knowledge about this covid business, but what I do understand is that one measure of how bad things are is when the number of cases or deaths are shown as a percentage of the population.....which sounds quite reasonable to me. That way, the severity of infection, spread and death can easily be compared against other countries. From everything I've read in this thread so far, posters seem to be un-naturally agitated and concerned because the rates that are shown appear to be less than, or in the very very worst case, much better than or equal to other countries. Of course, even 100 deaths is very sad and regrettable, although no where can I see that anyone has said that 5 million deaths is a mere drop in the bucket! But what I can see is where it was implied that 5 million as a percentage of 1.46 bill., is a very small percentage.

One of the very few writers on Thai economics that I do enjoy reading is Chartchai Parasuk who writes in the Opinion section of the newspaper whose name may not be spoken. Chartchai is one of the few people I have come across who not only understands the subject matter but is also an excellent writer whose views are well balanced. His last half dozen articles are out there, waiting to be read on various aspects of the Thai economy. And because we discussed it earlier, I read again his article from September 2022 where he talked about the fall in the Foreign Currency Reserves. Reading that, along with writing a post about Japanese FDI in Thailand and mentioning negative flows, made me remember that capital outflows in September 2022 were significant and that these manifested themselves in the FCR's.....it's worth reading soon (it will disappear at the end of the month), to understand the detail. And if you do read that article, read it in conjunction with BOT's graph on page 11 of the link I posted earlier about Foreign Currency Reserves because that will show visually what Chartchai has written, here's the link again: https://www.bot.or.th/English/MonetaryPolicy/EconomicConditions/PressRelease/DocPressRelease/Slide_eng_November2022_te72nv8.pdf

I might easily have used the same phrase myself to describe covid cases here in Thailand or back in the UK, it doesn't seem like a particularly wrong term to use, unless I'm missing something here?