sidneybear

Good post. So many westerners come here, realise that it's a much better place to live than back home, then seem to suffer from a weird kind of culture shock. They then try to import their hideous culture and expect Thailand to be just like America, or whatever dystopia they fled in the first place (the Americans are the worst for this behaviour).

Not true: https://www.ato.gov.au/tax-and-super-professionals/for-tax-professionals/prepare-and-lodge/tax-time/before-you-lodge/foreign-income

Tax as unpleasant for me as it is for anyone else. The fact is many countries tax worldwide income for residents. People complain at any new tax, but it isn't a cliff and life goes on. Foreign sourced income is likely a drop in the ocean anyway: most personal income tax is paid on domestic income, from the droves of people working here. Not a cliff, I'm afraid, which is probably why they're doing it.

That's not true anymore. Thailand has a large middle class of people on salaries who all pay personal income tax.

Sretta is just a Thaksin stooge, and Thaksin himself has been away so long and has lost the plot.

Kudos to him, but 67 Baht per kilometer doesn't seem much for such an amazing feat.

Good observation. Look at how America is choking on its vomit these days. It's devoid of culture, has lost its moral compass, and is reduced to blindly following this or that meaningless fad. Thailand should ban all this vile rainbow propaganda.

Lia Thomas is a bloke who cheats at sport to gain fame and fortune in plain sight. There, I said it. Western discourse has become divorced from reality and nobody states the obvious anymore.

True. In Thailand, it's always about enforcement, rather than the laws themselves. Only time will tell.

The economy is bad enough as it is. Why does Thailand have to copy these boneheaded green policies from the West?

Taxing worldwide income is nothing new. Australia does it.

That's how taxation works in general. Those who earn more, pay more, but the welfare and social security payments are fixed and are the same for everyone. Anything above the minimum varies from country to country. In Australia, for example, pensions over and above the state minimum are based on contributions that are linked to your income. Australia allows you tax deductions for paying additional contributions into your superannuation pension account.

That's not true. Your entitlement to a pension is based solely on the number of years you've paid National insurance prior to retirement age. It's all here: https://www.gov.uk/new-state-pension

Some people are never happy. Doubling the amount of time people can visit visa free is a major concession.

That's right, and it's likely to remain so. It's also why Move Forward was booted out. Thailand doesn't want American meddling. American culture is vile these days too.

As I've said elsewhere, what would be the cost to the exchequer if all these impoverished pensioners were to go back home and enroll in the NHS? A lot more...

I can't disagree. It's as if the British government puts its own citizenry - people who have paid in all their lives - at the back of the queue. It's impossible to understand their rationale.

You should include c): the state pension is so small that she'd make minimal impact to the economy, as would a resident pensioner who stuffed her meagre pension under her mattress. or point d): Any economic benefit of a pensioners remaining resident would likely be offset by their disproportionately high use of the NHS and other public services financed by the taxpayer

Pensioners living in the Philippines get annual increases. Those living in Thailand don't. It's bizarre.

Well yes, but that's only half of the story because overseas pensioners are barred from free NHS healthcare (something very costly that resident pensioners use a lot) and a lot of other resident only benefits too. Resident pensioners pay very little tax on their state pension, because they don't receive much in the first place.

I think you're missing the point. In Britain, you only get a pension if you pay into National Insurance before retirement age. It isn't a free pension. Why should people who leave be penalised, when they've paid in?

Move Forward has a very simple foreign policy: it'll do whatever America tells it to do.

That's sad. There's no reason, other than cruelty, for the British government to freeze overseas pensions of people who have paid National Insurance all their lives.

Some companies take a while to get of the ground, even legitimate ones.

Why are you in Thailand? Not fighting for your country then?