ukrules

Apart from all those arrested for having sex, kissing in public and smuggling cocaine sure - there's no crime in Dubai

Not my interpretation but from the youtube video - so you're going out on a limb here and saying that Carden from AITA and his Thai accountant colleague are talking nonsense? Interesting, how do they get away with such lies if this is the case? And why would they?

Well if you want to reap the billions every year from mass tourism it's a simple fact that some of the dregs of society will come and do what they do best - make problems.

That's where the 'equal treatment' part kicks in and it may be dependent on double taxation agreements specifying that foreigners be treated in the same way as Thai citizens when it comes to Thai law. The relevant part of the Revenue code is Section 42, sub section 25 : So if they don't tax Thais on it and there's an 'equality' clause in the DTA then if foreigners are treated the same as Thais as explained in the video I linked above - all pensions from countries where this equality is guaranteed in the DTA should have the very same law applied. I spelled it out here as the specific section / sub section is buried deep in the video and I know hardly anyone will watch it. In the video he speaks about 'non discrimination clauses' in the DTAs This is from the youtube transcript : He then goes on to talk about 'sending it up the chain' inside the Revenue Department - I really think he's onto something here.

You know it's generally empty in there this time of year right?

That arrow is useful as sometimes it goes to the bottom of the page and it's easier to click that than press the 'Home' key to scroll to the top.

Well I'd speak to an accountant about that if it affected me just in case.

I'm quite fond of one way flights these days. I have the visas for this in each country I visit including Thailand. There is no return flight - I'll book one when I decide to travel which might be a few weeks prior to departure and I'll stay as long as I want each time I come which could be a few days, months or even years. A lot of people don't have a fixed or even any specific schedule when they travel.

As much as I don't like Blair - he's right - Trumps new minimum rate is 10% and that's what he's chosen for the UK The morons in charge should thank him and move on because it could be a lot worse. There is now a massive economic advantage for the UK, for the time being. I doubt this will last that long and consider the whole thing to be transitory.

Indeed, which means they can not tax any other form of social security, Thai, foreign, whatever as it would be a breach of 'non discrimination' - that's the argument being put forward as far as I understand it. It's a new angle and that's the first time I heard it, will be interesting if it plays out. We already know some people have been turned away from filing tax returns, even when they tried multiple times - because they submitted pension income - which they thought would trigger taxation - perhaps this is the reason why. I guess we will all know for sure in a year or two.

What happened to dumping the fuel in an emergency situation - don't they do that any more?

This would apply to pensions only of course - he specifically speaks about pensions like the UK 'old age pension' - not a 'government pension' from being a pimms quaffing whitehall type civil servant (as exampted by the treaty, of course - these are the very people who negotiated the treaty and they exempted themselves) but the basic pension which most people seem to get which is essentially 'social security' and Thailand doesn't tax that for Thais so they can't tax it for foreigners because it would be discriminatory, now a DTA may come into play with a non discrimination clause - but maybe not - because if the Thais are not taxed on it then they can't just go ahead and tax the foreigner for whatever made up reason they want to. This is the first time I've heard this argument presented by Carden and his team. His employee (the Thai accountant woman in the video) has been talking to the revenue department about it for a long time according to the video. Seems legit to me. Anyway I have no pension but I figured I'd mention it here because I know a lot you guys do.....and I like to think many people can avoid this completely If I were a Thai tax resident I would speak to the one of the many Thai accountants who works at his company.

Perhaps, apparently according to some video I watched foreigners must be treated the same way Thais are treated and apparently Thais are not taxed on 'social security' - which is an often mistranslated term. Are Thais taxed on pension income ? The dude in the video seemed to think not and said this also applies to foreigners, perhaps this explains why some people have been told they don't have to pay anything while others have to pay something. Anyway - it's Carden from AITA and here's the video at the exact part where he begins to discuss this equality thing : Is it accurate - who knows?

I know, I'm referring to the ordinary Brit or American moron who's out shopping in Walmart or Tesco, they're going to look at 30 different brands of rice spread across a couple of shelving units and most likely not care about what it is or where it came from - if by some chance they have been buying Thai rice and the price shoots up by 50% they will just choose a different brand and THEY won't care, they won't even think about it for more than a second, there's always something cheaper from somewhere else. The Thais have already 'lost face' for being called out on their price gouging.

Yeah nobody cares, when out shopping if the price has gone up by 50% they will just switch brand. No big deal.