K2938

As you will die much earlier because of the air pollution, you have much more money in each of the years still left. Simple mathematics 🤣

The key driver is not infrastructure projects, but fires. And these could largely be controlled if there were the political will to do this. But nobody cares unfortunately. The picture shows real-time data

Sadly, if you value your health, things have deteriorated so far in recent years that you now better also decamp to somewhere else Feb-Apr even if you live in Hua Hin / Cha-am

What is the source of your statement on DENV 4? I am not at all saying that it is not correct, but I have for example seen a Thai study from 2010 which says the opposite: "DENV-2 appears to be marginally associated with more severe dengue disease as evidenced by a significant association with DHF grade I when compared to DENV-1. In addition, we found non-significant trends with other grades of DHF. Restricting the analysis to secondary disease we found DENV-2 and -3 to be twice as likely to result in DHF as DEN-4." (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2830471/ ) See also this from Brazil: https://bmcinfectdis.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12879-016-1668-y ("The present study found that cases of DENV-2 had a higher proportion of severe dengue than among those of DENV-1 and DENV-4")

True, but even there the BOI appears to be kind of immune to economic logic. If you show them a brokerage account worth a zillion dollars, they will say this does not meet the self-health insurance criteria since it needs to be in cash even if you could easily sell the shares at any time or take out a margin loan against them hugely exceeding $100k USD. Also, they even reject if the $100k USD in cash is in a brokerage account in cash, insisting it needs to be a bank account as far as I know. So they just love to tick boxes and if the situation does not fully meet this they will reject things even if they are economically vastly superior.

I would recommend you to talk to them again about this. They should accept an annuity. Regarding their answer whoever wrote this just did not get that since this is already your money, you of course will not pay tax on the capital part being returned to you. Point this out to the BOI - politely - and see what they say. Best to visit in person if that is possible for you. If you need an additional argument, tell them that they also accept Roth IRAs in the U.S. as far as I know and they are also tax-free. P.S.: The only problem with annuities is that they tend to be awful investments. But that is a different topic.

Try Malaysia. The problem in Thailand is that government hospitals probably will have a long waiting list and private hospitals might well charge you more than in many Western countries outside the U.S. So just search on Google and you will find a lot of good offers in Malaysia.

Unless the BOI has recently drastically changed its policies, they definitely have no sympathy for just assets. You can be a billionaire asset wise. The only thing they focus on is income. If you do not have the recurrent income, your assets alone will not cut it.

Maybe worthwhile to add that if your 80k USD or a significant part of this comes from non-recurring things like capital gains, one-time distributions or payments from your own company, then things might get difficult.

Would you have a link for this, please?

Thank you for posting the Sherrings note which is very useful. In there the following is also quoted from the Q&A from the Thai Revenue department: "Question: If, yearly, I invest abroad and I bring part of it back into Thailand, is the part I bring back into Thailand determined as investment capital or as assessable income? Answer: For monies that are brought into Thailand, taxpayers have a duty to self- determine based on facts and evidence that the monies brought into Thailand are capital or assessable income." Does anybody have any idea what this means in practice? The answer is really not answering the question as they do not say what methods are supposed to be used for the separation of funds.

Where does it say this in the Sherrings note, please? If the respective double taxation agreement does not prohibit Thailand from taxing the overseas pension, then the only thing which can be done is to credit any foreign taxes to any Thai taxes due, but if the Thai taxes are higher, then an additional payment is due.

The links cited by connda indeed concern Dengvaxia, but a sufficient number of eminent scientists having reviewed the Qdenga data has concluded that there is really insufficient data to decide if Qdenga does not cause the same problem for dengue-naïve people that one should be careful IF one has never had dengue yet. This is for example discussed in the Nature article I quoted above, this is also the concern of the Germans, this is the concern of Mahidol and I have also seen an article of some renowned Swedish scientists (from Karolinska if I remember correctly) pointing out the same. Now of course there are also other opinions, but I personally prefer to be on the careful side as a dengue-naïve person. Moreover, the first time you get dengue the likelihood of it killing you is very very small, so the risk is quite small, and the vaccine is more effective if you already had dengue as well.

The manufacturer did a study, but again if you look at the data closely things do not look as great as they might appear: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-03546-2

There is actually not enough data to decide at this point of time if it is really advisable to get Qdenga if you have not had dengue previously. For this reason, respected Western health authorities such the German ones do not generally recommend Qdenga for people who have not had dengue yet at this point of time. Also, the application of Qdenga for the U.S. was withdrawn for lack of sufficient data (which applicants generally do to prevent a rejection). So this all seems to support a cautious approach which also falls in line with Mahidol University as quoted by the OP ( https://www.thaitravelclinic.com/blog/vaccineinfo/dengue-vaccine-for-foreigners-travelers-in-thailand-should-i-get-it-update-2023.html ). Mahidol was actually also involved in the original development of Qdenga so what they say should have a lot of weight. This is not just some random "travel clinic". P.S.: I was actually planning to get Qdenga, but in view of all this I decided to better wait.

It is just PR. If you run the numbers, then the daily death rate during these new year days was only marginally above the average death rate over the entire year using last year's data (42.7 vs. 40.4 deaths per day). So these horrible year end days do not really exist at all. This is just the rate people die in Thailand in traffic accidents every day and nobody cares.

Based on our discussion I have today contacted some Indonesian firm providing immigration and tax advice. They confirmed that if a retired person is in Indonesia more than 183 days, he or she is taxable on global income. Without any caveats, without any exceptions. Sorry. So if you find some more evidence supporting what you say, then please let me know. But - unfortunately - I do not think it is true.

Thank you for this, but the Jakarta Post article you quoted is from 2019 and these changes have not been implemented as is also mentioned in your second link. That some poor pensioners might get away with not declaring taxes might well be true just as countless farang in Thailand have without penalty not declared foreign income submitted in the year it was earned, but I do not think this is the law unfortunately.

Who did you use in Hua Hin if I may ask?

But Indonesia has worldwide taxation and high tax rates unless you know something I don't

If your question is if there is an ATM BEFORE you go through immigration, then the answer is no. However, the chances of you actually being checked for this are very low. Moreover, if you have any written document confirming that you will be getting an LTR HSP visa, then you should not have any problems anyway. But if you want to make extra sure, you can also have the THB 20k in any foreign currency equivalent. It does not need to be THB. The onward travel ticket is more important because this is frequently checked by the airlines.

Unclear as so much. The most restrictive version I have heard is that it only exempts income actually earned (earned, not submitted!) in a year you hold an LTR visa, but not income from any other year. However, for regular pension payments that would appear to be sufficient for you.

They will not tell you...

"Those who obtain the LTR visa are exempted from paying personal income tax on their foreign assets or earnings. Since the launch of the scheme in September 2022, over 3,000 LTRs have been granted to foreigners. In the weeks since the Sep 15 announcement of the new tax regulation, there has been a 14 per cent increase in LTR applications, according to sources." https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/international/asean/thailands-tweak-tax-regulation-foreign-income-sparks-confusion-worries

"Those who obtain the LTR visa are exempted from paying personal income tax on their foreign assets or earnings. Since the launch of the scheme in September 2022, over 3,000 LTRs have been granted to foreigners. In the weeks since the Sep 15 announcement of the new tax regulation, there has been a 14 per cent increase in LTR applications, according to sources." https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/international/asean/thailands-tweak-tax-regulation-foreign-income-sparks-confusion-worries