MangoKorat

There is another very important component of the application - a large 'donation'. Two of my mates gave up when they were told that an envelope containing at least 100,000 baht in addtion to the other fees would be needed for the application path to be a smooth one.

So if the hotel does a TM 30 why do they want this online TM6? It will be much the same as the old paper one - you state where you will be staying - remember many people actually move around and don't book their stays until they get to Thailand. How many people will bother telling them they've moved to once they've done the original notification? I don't know if things have improved but a lot of small hotels'Thai style resorts still have no idea what a TM30 is. We will have to see what the mechanics of this thing are if its ever introduced - but I am confident that it will both fail to work and not be checked.

Of course I do but I doubt 99.9% of tourists know about the TM30. Do you actually think a tourist would check to make sure they were registered if they moved to stay with a Thai friend for example? I've stayed at plenty of hotels where my girlfriend has dealt with the booking - my passport wasn't asked for so no TM30 was done. In any case, you are just being obtuse. My point in the post you initially quoted was that tourists are not going to like having a phone app or any other form of tracking. That is the underying reasoning behind all this - the Thai government have brought it all up before, several times. They want the ability to track the whereabouts of a particular tourist - current and past locations. They think that by doing so it will help them to identify people involved in a crime or overstaying. The last time this was proposed, they thought they could make tourists use a SIM card which they had to put in their phone and that would be used to track them. Would you want to replace your SIM with a government one? Its Thailand not China or North Korea - people on their holidays just don't want even the feeling they're being tracked. Apart from that - have you ever known any Thai online system work properly? Did you ever try to send your 7 day Covid test results? When the App didn't work, were you worried you'd be stopped at the airport upon leaving, thinking you'd be arrested for not complying, even though you'd tried? I and thousands of others probably had that experience but in fact nothing happened. In any case - even if the system did work and I had been able to send my 7 day test results - they had no way of knowing if I'd tested myself of the family dog. I'll tell you what all this is about - its about money. Someone high up in the authorities will have a cousin who has a company that will create the app that tracks tourists and everyone will feed from the trough. They won't care one jot that the App isn't actually capable of tracking anyone because they don't care - they will have had their feast. People entering bent on commiting crime would simply leave the phone in their room or take the govt SIM out, there would be no check on that or action until afterwards. So I'll turn it around - 'do you not know how things work around here'? I repeat what I said in the post you originally quoted: This will really go down well with tourists.

Tourists?

Hang on a minute........aren't they supposed to be introducing an ETA soon? So an ETA before you travel then register on an online tracking system (which will be all it is in reality) when you arrive. This will really go down well with tourists.

Careful, someone's bound to come along and tell you you don't 😁.

Who dreams up this rubbish? Just give up on this obsessive idea of tracking people - waste of time. Anyone entering for the purpose of some form of wrong doing will comply initially, leave the airport and disappear. Most tourists don't stay in the same location all the time. What address did you used to put on the old paper TM6? There wasn't enough space to write a full address in any case. I used to have a night in Bangkok before heading up home. The only address they used to get from me was that of the first Bangkok hotel that came to mind and I almost certainly wasn't staying there.

Precisely!

I'm not going to get into an argument with you about this - I've seen how 'ordinary' Thais are sometimes treated by the Thai legal system - that's enough for me to know that money talks - it even makes charges go away.

I am simply going by what my Thai friend said when they told me about this incident.

Its the norm when there is overwhelming evidence and the forthcoming sentence is definitely incarceration. In addition, most 'ordinary' Thai's couldn't put up 600K.

Naturalised apparently - according to Thai news.

Back to the matter of whether duty is payable or not: Depending on the meaning of 'non immigrant quota', I might not be liable to customs duty. I've checked the Thai version and it says exactly the same. Anyone know what 'non immigrant quota' is? Note its 'OR' work permit. '- Nonresidents (1) Nonresidents changing their residence into Thailand must be granted a non-immigrant quota as shown in their passports or Nonresident Identification Cards; or (2) Nonresidents granted to work in Thailand are regarded as resuming residents in Thailand provided they have a one-year non-immigrant visa issued by the Immigration Department. In case where the non-immigrant visa has not yet been granted, either of the following documents may be accepted: The letter from the Immigration Department certifying that the nonresidents shall be granted an annual temporary stay in Thailand; or The work permit from the Department of Labor to work in Thailand for no less than one year. https://www.customs.go.th/cont_strc_simple.php?lang=en&ini_content=individual_F01_160426_01&ini_menu=menu_individual_submenu_02&&left_menu=menu_individual_submenu_02_160421_01

He's not actually Thai.

They may be a PITA but deliberately chsing after them, running into them and killing them??? No amount of broken mirrors can justify that.

Certainly if I can find iy again.

Apparently this guy is a wealthy Thai/Indian. Giving him bail doesn't bode well for justice being done. Given the evidence against him (detailed on Thai news), a prison sentence would be a certainty for ordinary peope and bail would be out of the question.......................so what's going to happen here I wonder?

It seems the tax allowances I'd read about previously may not be quite as generous. The additonal allowance you get when you reach 65 may actually be a tax exemption on net income up to 190,000 per tax year and only if you are disabled. Some sites say over 65 OR disabled - some say over 65 AND disabled.

Try getting them to believe its a scam though.

Well I'm no expert but I'd rather hear that from the horses mouth - actually, in writing. I doubt Mr Turner and his mates will recompense you, should you fall foul in years to come and end up with back taxes or worse. For now.

For those of us who come from a country where healthcare is free, dealing with a private health system can be a very strange experience. I found the experience of being sold healthcare and the constant attempts at 'upselling' totally alien. In other circumstances we might just say that you have to have your wits about you and make sure you are not being sold something you don't need. That's difficult when you may have no idea if you need a particular item or service or not. The hospital's overarching aim is to make money and that can take a little getting used to. Its not only us though - it goes on right down to basic levels - dentistry for example. Have you noticed just how many Thai females are fitted with braces? Each time my ex wife visited her dentist she was told that she needed to keep the braces for another 3 months and predictably, another appointment was made - paid for of course. This went on for years. I kept telling her there was nothing wrong with her teeth but of course, the Thai dentist must be right. When she moved to the UK she visited a dentist who removed the braces immediately - and commented that the design and type had actually done very little. I still don't think she believed it but the braces were removed.

From the information I've read, under the DTA between Thailand and the UK, UK state pensions are assessable income whereas Government pensions are not. That does not necessarily mean you will pay tax on a UK state pension - the allowances are not too bad. All it means is that such income will be added to any other income and assessed for tax.

FYI Nakhon Ratchasima is Korat - a Thai abrieviation - Nakhon Ratchasima

No but they might arrest you if you give a hotel a bad (but truthful) review.

Typical of Korat Immigration. Most people report that they don't have to re-register provided they return to the same address. Is it Korat being awkward as usual or is it because he's left the country and returned? I'll have to register TM30 with Korat again soon - first time was a nightmare as they had no idea what a Usufruct is.