CaptHaddock

The OP should have been paying the Self-Employment tax (payroll tax) on his earnings from self-employment for the entire time that he has been self-employed. So, he needs to file amended returns now for the period of his delinquency plus interest and penalties. SS is not voluntary.

I would think that Thailand qualifies as my "tax home". I have been living here for more than 17 years, have a Thai wife, file a 2555 every year and pass the physical presence test. I haven't been back to the States since 2004 when I went back for a week for a funeral. I want to be sure everything I do with the IRS places me beyond scrutiny since I have only been doing the FBAR for a few years and have only just begun to report my Thai interest from bank accounts and dividends from a Thai mutual fund. The mutual fund informed me that they will be providing Uncle Sam with information about my mutual fund and they sent me a Form W-8 (I think that is what it was called) to sign.

Maybe I am being a little paranoid since I am such a little fish among so many hugely wealthy expats.

Thanks for your info everyone. It's really helpful.

Thailand is your "tax home" if you file and pay taxes here. Apparently, you don't, so it isn't your tax home.

Your wife doesn't automatically get ss by being your wife. She needs to reside in the US continuously to receive that benefit. I don't remember the number of years, it's on the ss website. she will also have to get permanent residency before they grant citizenship. If you're planning to be there half time only, expect the government to fight you against granting permanent residency, they'll be probably be willing to grant a 6 month visa first. You're looking at YEARS of paperwork to get this done. Not to mention again that she must live continuously, not part time, to get ss benefits. No way around that.

What I know is that the Thai spouse will need 5 years of continuously residence to get the residence, plus more 5 years to get the citizenship, and after husband death the SS benefit is a % of the total, less another % if living out the country.

Somebody said here that the US Social Security is "generous"......Really?...for some people probably is..not for most. Considering the differences... Thais long term employees get better SS benefits than US citizens...Some up to 70% of its last salary after 60...or a nice lump cash....or both.

Congratulations. Every single item in your post is wrong for a perfect score of 0.

1. There is no minimum period of residence before the alien can apply for permanent residence. Actual processing time varies considerably. It is nonsensical to imagine that there is a minimum period of residence before applying for PR status since how would the applicant reside legally in the US for 5 years without PR status?

2. For a spouse of a US citizen the minimum tenure of PR status before becoming eligible to apply for citizenship is 3 years, not 5 years, which applies to those not married to an American.

3. The SS widow's (survivor's) benefit is 100% of the Primary Insurance Benefit the deceased spouse received while living or her own PIA, whichever is higher. The widow receives that benefit in lieu of the spouse's benefit she received while both partners were living which is normally 50% of the husband's (or high earner's) benefit.

4. There is no reduction in SS benefits for living overseas. COLAs also apply to all beneficiaries whether in the US or outside of it.

Please do not post junk "information" on subjects about which you apparently know nothing.

The link to the article entitled, "Inheritance Tax Bill Future Looks Murky" sent to your PM box.

According to the Newspaper-That-Must-Not-Be-Linked, there will not apparently be an inheritance tax after all. Just as I always thought. It's ludicrous to expect the dictatorship to act against the interests of their rich supporters. It was all just a fake show of even-handedness. Big surprise.

Less than 2% of the population of Thailand pay income tax.

http://asiancorrespondent.com/110344/income-tax-equality-and-the-thai-budget/

But they all pay the regressive VAT tax which pays 40% of the cost of the Thai government.

I thought heath care was great in the UK and that it was free for everyone, no?

I know that income taxes in the US are significantly lower than Thailand, although that is subject to change.

I think you need to look again at the difference between US and Thai tax bands, what you claim is not correct.

Top tax rate (35%) kicks in here at THB 4mln or USD122k. The 35% rate doesn't kick in until USD 400k in the US. Which ones are you looking at?

OB

Now that I've looked at it in detail I have to retract what I wrote, US income tax is slightly lower than Thai income tax, assuming all the bands look similar to below. But using the example below, given the overlap in the amounts being compared, the likely 3% difference can hardly be called "significant".

AT 32 baht per USD:

In Thailand: more than 2,000,000 Baht ($62,500) but less than 4,000,000 ($125,000) baht is taxed at 30%

In the USA: more than $73,801 (2,361,632 Baht) to $148,850 (4,763,200 Baht) is taxed at 25%

http://www.bankrate.com/finance/taxes/tax-brackets.aspx

http://www.rd.go.th/publish/6045.0.html

Why is it that most discussions of US tax rates ignore completely state income tax and even city income tax in a few cases? For example, New York State has a top tax rate of about 9% while New York City has an additional 4.5%. 44 of the 50 states have an income tax.

The VAT tax, which is the source of 40% of the Thai government's revenue, is a regressive tax that disproportionately hits middle and lower income people. Reducing the tax burden on businesses and increasing it on the middle income and poor people is quite consistent with the dictatorship's goals of supporting the rich and powerful.

Comey raises the number of Republicans I admire up to an all-time high of one.

I finally got around to having a PSG and did it at St. Louis Hospital. Cost was ฿11,000 or about $337. By now it's clear to me that whenever I can get a test done at St. Louis it will be cheaper to do it there than at the other top-level private hospitals in BKK.

By comparison here's a study of costs for a PSG in the New York area that found prices varied from $600 to $6,177.

http://clearhealthcosts.com/blog/2013/04/how-much-does-a-sleep-study-cost-well-600-or-5070/

From an American perspective at least, prices in BKK for medical services seem very cheap indeed.

Thailand turning into Thailandland?

This was a great speech by a head of the US FBI. A long way from J. Edgar. Glad I lived to see the day.

Why do you start your response by calling someone "Dumb"? Your communication would have been more effective had you just left out the first two words.

Would you feel better if I called it "an extremely naive move?" What did you hope to accomplish by telling them that you live in Thailand? You must have known there was no advantage to you to do so plus an uncertain risk of action to your detriment, which is what happened, of course. But now you know, right? So going forward you realize that there is no advantage to you in informing US institutions that you live in Thailand except those that insist on it with the force of law such as the Social Security Administration or the IRS? That way, your life will be less complicated and I can resist the "D" word in the future? Right?

The issue came up because last week I had a portfolio review. During the review I told the advisor I've been in Thailand for the last 14 months. But I also told him I have a home in the USA and I pay state and federal taxes in the USA.

Dumb move. By notifying them you forced them to take action so that they can in the future show good faith efforts not to solicity brokerage and investment business in Thailand and thereby not fall under the regulations of the Thai SEC. Fidelity and other US brokerages operate under a "don't ask, don't tell" policy.

Recommend you open an account at Schwab or Vanguard or some other good brokerage and not make the same mistake again.

Why should I have to pay more for a taxi driver to do his job? How about making taxi drivers do the job they've chosen to do.

You sound like a guy whose wages are not set by a government body unlike taxi drivers, right?

I really don’t know whether or not I should contribute to this thread, given the OP’s reminder of his intended purpose – the joys of communicating in Thai.

I live in a totally Thai environment. I know 2 foreigners here and don’t see them for more than a few hours each a year. My wife speaks reasonable English as do some of her friends, her adult sons very little – although I actually think that impression is down to shyness re. her oldest son of 30. My daughter-in-law speaks a little but is eager to learn & certainly not self-conscious about her mistakes J. But generally, very little English is spoken around me.

I’ve always enjoyed learning languages – formal French, German, Spanish lessons at school and Classical Greek as an added extra with no real goal in mind, some Irish & Manx(!!!) just out of curiosity and all largely forgotten now, although I surprised myself by holding a conversation in very hesitant German a year or two ago after 35-odd years of not using a word of it, which made me realise that perhaps the knowledge was still lurking in there somewhere.

I have a reasonable Thai vocabulary, can count, tell the time, know colours, common goods at the market, know adequate words & phrases for booking a hotel room, know about catching buses & trains, can read – or at least, can reproduce (most of) the sounds I see in Thai text, although often the sounds don’t form words I’m familiar with – and can read a Thai bus station ticket office destination/fare board. I can formulate past, present & future of verbs as well as “probably”, “used to” and similar. I can often understand more than 50% of the conversations between my wife & her friends, somewhat less when the conversation is in Isaan Thai rather than Central.

My problem is two-fold. I have GREAT difficulty in understanding most male speakers whereas I find female speakers much easier – maybe it’s the pitch of the voice or perhaps men are more prone to mumbling. I know it’s a common excuse, but tones are a problem for me – maybe ear damage after 40-odd years of motorcycling & working in engineering plants. Whatever it is, with one or two exceptions I find listening to men causes me to miss 90% of what they say. Secondly, I’m not much of a conversationalist even in my native English and never use two words where one will do, tending to be a very quiet person. Possibly, I use that as an excuse not to speak Thai – I often prefer to be on the fringes of a conversation rather than an integral part of it. I know in my mind the Thai words I need to say but there’s some sort of block that prevents it coming out of my mouth – I guess that amounts to a huge lack of confidence. My English written communication can be very good but my verbal communication is abysmal – same with verbal communication in Thai. Reading back those last sentences, they sound ridiculous even to me & no doubt sound the same to those of you reading this. But that’s the situation.

I know … confidence grows with practice. On the rare occasion now when I try speaking Thai, I can make my initial statement – which usually appears to be intelligible if not entirely grammatically correct – but then frequently have trouble understanding the response, which stifles the conversation flow. I’m constantly exposed to Thai and SHOULD be totally comfortable listening & speaking after 5 years in the country. It’s very frustrating to WANT to speak Thai but for the reasons I’ve given – whether or not they’re genuine & valid reasons in your view – it just doesn’t come.

Fire away - tell me I'm being ridiculous. I'm sure it's well-deserved.

A good post that raises some important questions. You feel frustrated that your comprehension, especially of colloquial Thai, isn't sufficient to understand everthing. You think you may have some physical problem that prevents you from being able to hear the Thai tones because why else would you still have difficulty with tones after five years? You have never studied Thai with a competent teacher, but expected to "pick up" the language on your own by immersion.

Does that summarize your first problem at least? If so, then in my opinion you have got the whole thing exactly wrong. You attribute your limited success to some inherent problem in your learning ability, but you never question the completely dubious method you have chosen. Any normal Westerner can become fluent in Thai. The fact that so few do is because they vastly underestimate the amount of work involved and they pick one of the methods that is virtually guaranteed to fail. In your case, why would you expect to be able to "pick up" the Thai language on your own, without competent instruction? Have you ever met any Westerner who did that? Me neither. Why, if the results you have got after five years are not satisfactory do you still not raise the question of whether "picking it up" on your own is ever going to work? Have you achieved milestones in the past year that demonstrate progress? If not, why would you persist in believing that the "picking it up" method is ever going to work? I doubt that it will.

The first month that I started studying in the Intensive Thai Program at Chulalongkorn U. I attended the mini-graduation ceremony for the group of students (most Japanese, a couple of Chinese, and one token American) who were completing the then one-year program. Each student gave a short, extemporaneous talk thanking his teachers and sometimes making a few jokes which the students and Thai audience all laughed at in unison. So those competent students demonstrated the effectiveness of the Chula program. I now study privately at another school where I have also encountered advanced students and graduates who have demonstrated a high level of competence in the language. In the past year I have had some small milestones of specific activities that I now pursue well enough in Thai to dispense with English. So, those two facts taken together form the basis of my confidence in the program I am following. If you haven't seen others succeed with your "pick it up" method and you can't point to concrete examples of improvement in your own skills, then the method you have chosen is not working. It has nothing whatever to do with hearing, etc. I am, by the way, 65 years old and wear hearing aids.

Other methods that are similarly guaranteed to fail are: using books and tapes on your own without a teacher and attending one of the many junk schools teaching Thai. Once again, if you don't meet any successful graduates of your method, it's because there aren't any.

You seem to be motivated. That being the case you can certainly become fluent in Thai, but you need to study with a competent teach who will correct you every time you make a mistake in grammar, usage, or pronunciation of tones, short and long vowels, and consonants. It might be possible to learn this without a teacher. You might also conceivably be able to teach yourself to play the piano without a teacher. But neither approach would be the smart way to go about it.

By the way, Thai men do not typically speak as clearly as Thai women. Nor do more educated Thais of either sex speak a more correct or clear version of the language, as we would expect in the West. There are reasons for this of course, but that's just the way it is.

For most or all of the banks mentioned the OP will need a physical US address in order to open the account. There's the rub.

You don't need a US address with Schwab, but you may want one.

I recently changed from a domestic Schwab account to an International Schwab account because of information I read on TV. I use to have to jump through some hoops with that American address. So, now I give them my real address here in LOS.

Some subtle differences between the two accounts:

Only $500 ATM withdrawals but you can make multiple withdrawals. You can't trade Mutual funds (because you're outside the US). Paying bills or sending money to people is harder with an International account, easy with regular Schwab. It's like being in a separate division of Schwab. You conduct business from your brokerage account. There maybe other differences but those are the big ones.

Yikes. Schwab's international account eliminates the single best product of the US financial markets: low-cost index funds. Sounds like a terrible account.

For most or all of the banks mentioned the OP will need a physical US address in order to open the account. There's the rub.

The SS in USA will not do direct deposit to Thai bank.

Wrong. See above.

Germany joined the euro in 1999 precisely to get a cheap currency, which it did get since the weight of the other, less competitive members of euroland dragged down the euro's value much to Germany's benefit. And the trade surplus figures show it by spiking up after the euro is fully implemented in 2000:

Exporting countries do always want a cheap currency. When they can manage to achieve that goal they do it, like Germany in 2000.

Sumaa Institute. At least the best in the opinion of the current and former ambassadors who have studied there including: US, UK, Australia, Ireland, Belgium, Germany, among others. Foreign Services have a lot of experience in language training, particularly compared to the average Thai visa poster. Most or all of the schools on your list are not even competent, certainly not remotely comparable to the level of a university in Europe or the US.

Perhaps you should call your poll, "The Best of the Worst." Ridiculous.

And your list based on experience is? I must assume you attnded all of these to make such a comment. I would think cost, available time, and learning style would enter the picture somewhere as a pesonal opinion of "the best". Just a thought.

I have studied at Chula, Sumaa, and briefly, and regrettably, at two of the junk schools on the list who teach that wretched syllabus approved by the Thai Board of Ed and widely used. The appropriate question is not which is the best on his list, but which, if any, offer an adequate level of instruction, which I put at the level of a Western university. I doubt if any of the "schools" on the list are adequate, but of course I haven't studied at all of them. At both Sumaa and Chula I have encountered other students who became very competent at Thai, i.e. speak, read, write, listen. At the junk schools I never met anyone competent above a very rudimentary level. Are there any? Do they have any students that pass the Po 6 test? Do students at those schools ever succeed? I have my doubts.

So, if the instruction is not adequate then convenience and low cost hardly matter since the student is just wasting his time and his money. "Learning style" is a concern mainly for losers who will never learn the language. Learning any language, but especially a difficult one like Thai, is a grind. Your "style" is either to do the work of memorizing and practicing all the skills or not. At Chula there were some very talented Asian students who made great strides during the course of study. I never heard any of them mention "learning style."

You should get a US bank if you possibly can. With a US bank your benefits payments will be deposited each month after which you can transfer as much as you wish to your Thai bank, by SWIFT or ACH transfers depending on the banks involved or you can withdraw at an ATM. The alternative is to open a special account at Bangkok Bank just for the purpose of receiving your SS. Such an account has restrictions: you must go in person to withdraw money, you can't use an ATM card, you can't use online billpay, you can't transfer money online to a less restricted account, etc.

You might investigate the SS Debit Express Card, which is a debit card that you should be able to use in Thailand. I have no experience with this.

http://finance.zacks.com/social-security-benefits-citizens-living-abroad-2527.html

I believe that the Thai bath may become even stronger. Thailand is financially healthier than most foreigners think, specially because, after China, its a strong exporting force.....and it is more business oriented than other ASEAN members, like Laos, Cambodia, Burma, and the Philippines....

If the PM awakes for Thailand needs of foreign business and training talents, like Singapore did, its country may have a big role in Asian economy and future. My only concern is the role of Burma on it. Its location and potential is important for ASEAN, and the fight for its control is already happening between China and the US. It is a lot of work to be done in very short time, and I hope the General will get all the help and support to succeed in the challenge. I do not have doubts that he will be the next elected PM before the end of this year.

export oriented countries want exactly the opposite... they want a weaker currency... look at the problems the Swiss export companies face right now because of the strong CHF to EUR...

Export oriented countries do not necessarily want a weaker currency at all. That is the lazy assumption usually made by those who have not studied any economics. And a classic putting the cart before the horse.

Japan wants a weaker yen. That's at least a major, possibly the major, goal of Abe's plan to increase inflation. China has kept the renminbi cheap by sterilization, i.e. buying dollar-denominated assets with the trade surplus to keep the renminbi cheap against the dollar, to the tune of $3.3 trillion. The cost to China of this policy is that these assets are not available to invest within the country being tied up in US Treasury bonds. Germany keeps its currency cheap by entering a currency union with the less productive rest of Europe. Although Germany hates Draghi's policy of providing liquidity it tolerates it to keep the currency union from breaking up and ending up with expensive new Deutsch marks again. They hate the idea of write-downs of Greek debt, but will accept that rather then see the Greeks walk out of the euro.

Where's the laziness?

No one learns Thai to the level of fluency from books and tapes. For one thing, you don't get corrected for errors in pronunciation, grammar, and usage. Yet for some reason posters continue to believe that that method must work somehow. Beats me why people think that.

Better for the OP to do lessons by skype with a competent teacher, if he can find one.

Why would anyone believe NIDA in any case, since they were firmly on the anti-democracy side during the runup to the coup? If I wanted to know what Thais really think I wouldn't be asking NIDA.