Mike Lister

In all fairness, we did walk around Emisphere on Saturday unmasked and the place was heaving. Oh, and also Paragon too.

There's a link? Does it have pictures? Where is it?

If indeed that was the correct answer, medical staff who work in hospitals and who have regular vaccinations must be in dire trouble, I'm surprised there's any left standing.

No wait, it must be that only covid vaccinated people catch covid....wow, I completely missed that one. So, what happened with the first few thousand people who caught covid before the vaccine was created, was that a fluke. Who knows, its all too difficult. Anyway, I just wanted to know why ten people thought it was funny that a 75 year old caught covid, it looks like I may never find out.

That I'm telling the truth?

Cool! So nobody's going to die then, you promise?

Interesting. Well, I'm better than reasonably healthy. My diet is as clean as it gets, I run 5 miles a day, my blood numbers are what everyone else wishes there's were, no booze, don't smoke, no drugs and my BMI is 21. I'm pretty sure however that if you put me and your 20 friends, in the same covid virus laden room, I'm not going to be the only one who contracts the virus so there has to be more to it than just, reasonably healthy.

36,907

With so many changes in the pipeline and anxieties running hot, many people must be wondering what their options are so let’s look at the detail. The Baht is Not Freely Convertible. Which means THB can’t be freely exported in large amounts. As a general rule, the Thai banks will convert THB into the currency of the destination account, before it is sent outside Thailand. There are however some exceptions and even then there are limits: 1) Money earned in Thailand under a work permit can be remitted overseas, subject to confirmation by the employer that the funds were indeed earned legally. 2) Proceeds from the sale of real estate can be remitted overseas, as long as the person can produce the blue tax paid receipt from the Land Office. 3) Thai nationals can remit money overseas as long as the purpose of the remittance meets specific criteria set out by BOT, mostly as long as there is an overseas invoice to be paid. https://www.kasikornbank.com/en/international-business/global-money-transfer/pages/international-transferviakplus.aspx 4) THB can be taken out of the country in cash but this is limited to 50k Baht, except to neighbouring countries where the limit is higher and to some Chinese provinces where the limits is around 4 million baht. In any event, amounts of cash above the exporting threshold, must be reported to Customs at Departure, regardless of the currencies involved. 5) Limited amounts of THB can be remitted overseas, in line with the above, as long as the receiving account is also denominated in THB. It should be noted that overseas banks are not allowed to hold more than relatively low levels of THB in cash. 6) The other point worth mentioning at this point is that whilst THB is traded on international markets, it is not traded for delivery. All those things are well and good, but what about the foreigner who has lived in Thailand on a long term visa and suddenly decides to return home and wants to repatriate accumulated funds that were originally sent here from overseas? In theory, as long as there is an FET or equivalent confirmation that the funds were originally remitted from overseas, it should be possible to produce that and ask for the funds to be repatriated. In practise however, this may not be as straight forward as it should be. The banks concern is that the money you want to repatriate, might have been earned illegally (or worse) and/or that tax has not been paid on those funds. For the most part, when those funds were remitted to Thailand originally, the reason stated for the remittance was probably, “living expenses” and the expectation is that they will have already been spent, living. The banks are not the decision makers in this, they are the agents of BOT who must carry out BOT policy. There is nothing in the BOT regulations to say that foreigners cannot export funds overseas, the Central Bank rules only talk about controls on exporting THB, not foreign currency. In the past I’ve been able to remit a few hundred thousand baht (equivalent) overseas without difficulty, just by saying I need it for holiday spending. But I’m not sure what would happen if one day I walked in and, having sold my car et al and wanted to remit say 4 or 5 million back home again, what would happen? Perhaps if anyone has any experience of the above, they might tell us what happened.

Approximate ages of the 20?

Maybe you can explain it to me, in simple terms of course? Or perhaps you don't know either.

I'm struggling in this thread why so many posters think it's funny when a 75 year old man gets sick with covid, am I missing something here?

I have not heard anything about that and don't expect to either.

Yes, for me it's risk mitigation.

I am in the at risk group

And I usually wear a mask in crowds.......I guess maybe I'm just lucky. In all fairness, my last shot was exactly one year ago and by all accounts, ineffective against the current variants.

I'm unsure about that, I got my first OA in London in 2004 and they were happy enough that the 800K remained in HSBC London. It was only later at extension time that they started to get uppity. When I did finally transfer the money across it went into HSBC BKK, into a non-resident multi-currency account, in GBP and again they were happy enough.

You can doubt what you want but we visited Bangkok last week and contracted the new strain on what appears to be the first day. Even with antivirals, we've both been extremely sick for several days and are only now starting to recover. It's a nasty bug, the second time for us, despite five vaccinations.

It's too late in the day to remind 80 year old retirees who have lived here for the past 20 years that they should have bought insurance 20 years ago, it's also not very nice. 20 years ago the playing field looked very very different. Retirement visa applicants back then can be forgiven for acting very differently from the way new applicants should act today.

Grandfathered in people who had been on the exact same visa for 4 years or the same reason for extending that visa...which? Lots of people on OA visa for retirement, switched their reason for stay to marriage, without changing the underlying or original visa since there was no need.

The retirement visa from overseas was the O-A, you are correct. But since all visa's become equal once they have expired and the holder begins to use extensions, the only variable is the reason for the extension, eg marriage, retirement etc. I think the impact may be quite different for new visa applicants versus extensions to existing permission to stay and also retirement versus marriage extensions. I'm pretty sure that new retirement visa applications will require health insurance, it's also possible that new visa's for reasons of marriage may also require the same. I'm uncertain what they may do regarding extensions, especially extensions based on marriage, the latter seems more protected. I would not be surprised however to see the financial requirements at least doubled for all categories. Whether or not grandfathering will be a feature is also unclear. What is clear is that a worst case scenario of increased financial requirements and mandatory health insurance, for all extensions/reasons, could be devastating for many.

There s no reason why anyone should not be able to obtain a TIN and certainly no reason why anyone should have to pay for one. TRD has a helpline for people who have problems dealing with regional or district offices, the number is in the tax guide.

See Q5 https://sherrings.com/foreign-source-income-personal-tax-thailand.html

As an afterthought to the above, I'm now carrying 10% of Money Market funds and a further 20% of bond funds, as downside protection, those are steps I never felt I needed three of five years ago. I've also reduced my mid cap holdings to 15% and small caps to 5%, a move aimed at greater certainty. And whilst the investing world seems to think that the USA is the only game in town globally, at current price levels, I refuse to go over 45% of equities invested, even if that means holding under or non performing assets.

As you have been told, the funds to buy the property must originate from overseas, yours didn't hence your problem in obtaining an FET. In fact, you don't need an FET but you must have a bank letter stating that the funds originated from overseas, an FET is the official form but is not always required.....the bank letter however is required, You may be able to pay a fee to to your bank to have them bed and breakfast those funds which would allow them to be seen as new money received from overseas, I have heard of people doing this in the past. Go talk to your bank and see if they can help.