ukrules

Saw this on TV earlier - it's nuts!

I saw only one video but it was heavily edited. Did you see the full version?

Describing it as a loop hole is not correct. The previous system where no tax was due on prior years earnings was very deliberately introduced with a 'memo' issued way back in the 1980s. Suddenly out of nowhere a new memo was issued some 40 years later which reversed the 1980s memo. Which brings us to where we are now. So it was never a 'loop hole' - which is an unintentional consequence of something which wasn't thought through properly - it was a very deliberate and meticulous act when introduced and a very deliberate act when removed.

I wouldn't go that far, it seem like they can't be bothered with the hassle - at the moment.

If they hadn't have killed him they there would be no murder investigation. If I see some crazy running around like a mad man I tend to just ignore them. If they bother me and I manage to get rid of them then that's great. What I don't do is give chase and then 'subdue' them to death for some reason. I don't care what the guys issue is, once he's gone, problem solved.

So the difference in a manslaughter and murder charge often comes down to one simple question. Did they 'go after' the deceased or did an incident break out in which they had to act in self defence. Here they gave chase and in many countries that single difference is what changes any potential charge regardless of the reasons given from one of involuntary manslaughter / manslaughter to murder. It's a very small difference but it's why people sit in prisons for life compared to say 5 or 10 years if it was a one punch knockout in response to a single incident. Never chase someone down and attack them - because that's murder if they die, even if you didn't intend it - chasing after them is intent to attack. Simplified but explains how some people can end up on a murder charge even if it started out as an act of self defence.

You're right of course, but in practice lets face it - hardly anyone filed anything with the Revenue Department and many people remitted mixed funds / same year funds without much separation. I know some people used the beginning on the year big remittance method - as in do a wire for a few million Baht on the first business day of the year - kind of proves the money comes from the previous year but many people, even those who attempted to get TIN numbers were knocked back- and they're all potentially liable.

Indeed. British man murdered by a gang of thugs in Bangkok is the headline. There's never an excuse for murder so the circumstances (excuses for their actions) surrounding this literal beating to death of a tourist in Bangkok are kind of irrelevant really. He's dead, they killed him and it's all on CCTV.

Didn't happen to me either but it does happen. Imagine some local tax official filling out forms for years and doing them all wrong. No problem until the auditors come knocking. It's not the tax official who has the problem then.

Yes it is, and sure I will do me which is why I now spend half a year in Cambodia and don't pay a single Baht no matter how much I remit.

Think of it as being similar to immigration making a mistake on your entry stamp. It's your responsibility - not theirs. Same thing.

Indeed, you might only see one at a time but where there's one there's always and without exception many more

It's all nonsense, sit back and watch little to no change. Things may change over decades but not a few years and Thailand definitely won't be leading the way.

Use Kraken.com in the US if you have no ties to the US, are not a US citizen and have never been a green card holder. The US have many tax rules for anyone who's ever been a taxpayer inside the US - but for the rest of us - things are far easier. Also Kraken are international and they offer some special services to non US residents which are not available to US residents - like interest on cash balances. Oh, and they do not care that you are in Thailand one bit. I used a Kasikorn bank statement which I had printed with my address in English to prove my place of residence and they don't even mention a tax id.

Who told you this? Also what country and which exchange? Because I can tell you that it is definitely not the case for Kraken in the US when registered in Thailand.

Nonsense, what do you think an audit is?

The best thing about voipstudio is the 2000 minutes per month plan which costs just £17 a month and comes with a local number - I do make a LOT of calls every month and could use most of those minutes. I also setup a secondary account with 'SipGate' which allows pay per minute in case the first one stops working for any reason. both accounts have separate local numbers in the UK for me but have worldwide options. I found that I can also add an additional piece of software to my computer which cleans up the audio automatically so it's incredibly clear on the other end and on the recorded calls - there was a lot of air conditioner related background noise when I first used it as the VOIP software contains no way to remove background noise at all, I believe Skype does some kind of processing but it's not that good. In case anyone is interested and has an Nvidia graphics card I used something that's free called 'NVIDIA Broadcast' and it has these options which completely remove any background noise / hiss / echo - also keyboard typing sounds - it just sounds like you're sitting in professional a studio speaking into a high end microphone. Now my microphone is on the better end of the home user scale - it's a 'Yeti' by Blue but even so the sound quality sitting right in front of the microphone with this free app named 'NVIDIA Broadcast' is perfect - the best I've heard. So I have my full Skype replacement solution and it works better than the previous setup - I'm all set for years to come.

Yeah good point - there are varying zero rate allowances depending on circumstances and even age - these are generally lower than the allowances we get in the west - hence this overlap concept which exposes pretty much everyone to taxation if they submit for example the monthly requirement to meet a retirement visa for a single person. Anyway my point about any money earned 'back home' being taxable in Thailand still stands and they do tax anything that isn't excluded by the DTA and hasn't been taxed abroad - in theory. In practice I've been hearing a lot of people reporting they they don't tax pension income - at a local level.

Yeah this is where Teams falls apart and it fails badly. Only Teams for business with the multiple associated business software licenses and subscriptions will allow landline and mobile calls - you can't get the phone software or subscription to work with a personal account - it simply rejects it immediately and instantly - believe me - I've tried to do it. This is what made me reconsider the real VOIP services which have really been around for a long time now. Just try and use Teams to call a land line and you will see a kafkaesque path of licensing and subscriptions open up in front of you. Unless Microsoft make big changes to Teams and how it handles Skype type accounts or open it up for use with personal accounts then there's going to be big problems. None of the apps are worth anything if you need to call a landline, mobile phone without apps or a government office or bank in a foreign country - not one of them are suited to the task.

This is hilarious, a 'bump' like this is so obviously a scam only a complete fool would fall for it. If you're a bit dim then remember this : Don't talk to anyone who does a 'cold approach' when you're out and about, if you don't know then already then they are almost certainly up to no good.

I believe there is an overlap between the two very different thresholds and if they wanted to they could apply some tax to the bit inbetween the lower Thai tax free threshold and the higher tax free threshold in the UK and most other countries. Taxation kicks in at 10% between 300k and 500k and £12570 is worth 551k Baht right now So technically that untaxed 200k Baht between 200 and 500k would be taxed at 10% and the 51k above 500k stretches into the 15% band. Because it's not taxed in the UK then it won't be double taxed..... So in theory at least they could demand 10% of the 200k between 300 and 500k and 15% of the 51k between 500k and 551k which would be 20,000 Baht + 7,650 = 27,650 Baht. Now this money would not be double taxed as it's untaxed in the UK so should be fair game for them to come after - but I haven't seen many people speak about this. Is it excluded by the double taxation treaty? Who knows - I doubt it because it's not taxed is it - or if it is consdiered taxed at a zero rate - does that count at all? Also I doubt it. It doesn't apply to me as I don't pay any tax anywhere else due to being non resident anywhere that I could pay tax so they would want to tax the lot in my case if I were to stay more than 180 days - which I don't. You do mention a good point though as this 'overlap' as I'm going to call it is the first thing that came to mind when reading about this change long ago and I figured it would automatically affect every tax resident and bring them all into the tax net as the allowances in Thailand are very small compared to 'the west'..... So it would likely come down to - where does the income come from and is it covered by the double tax agreement - and that gets complex fast - hence - see an accountant to confirm. Edit - there is a lower 5% band as well which may or may not come into play depending on age.

I was personally only looking for Windows solutions but yes, there are plenty that have apps. The Zoiper software is available on desktops, Android and IOS so yes, that's why I mentioned it even though it doesn't fit my use case. It is a professional piece of software and works just fine - however it's not for me - but for many people this a very usable option - it's available at zoiper.com Check it out : https://www.zoiper.com/en/products It's worth noting that there are many many different pieces of software for desktop and mobiles that do this kind of thing and some of them are free with the phone service provider subscriptions - there's also 1000s of companies providing the phone service.

The above is long but worth a read if you want a Skype alternative that just works and in a very similar way......

I've been doing some research recently and as Skype is apparently going to be turned off I decided to look into the various VOIP systems that exist. These are a little more complex to setup - not much but more than just installing some software and entering the user/pass like you do on Skype However some of them do appear to be very straightforward but to get an incoming number the process differs between providers. I have quite a specific requirement in that I want to record phone calls and do so in MP3, not WAV format. With this type of system you get some VOIP SIP software and configure it to connect to the 'SIP gateway' which is a separate paid for service and not related to the software - some of the gateways offer software as part of the package - but my MP3 recording requirement made this useless to me. First I purchased a Zoiper 5 Pro license which is a piece of software that connects to a VOIP/SIP account - this works but it only records in WAV format - so that's out - wasted money there - for me - however it does appear to be a decent piece of software if you don't need to record or are not too fussy about disk space usage when you do record - WAV files are not small compared to MP3 files. I only use it for voice calls to landlines and mobile phones and for this to work reliably you do need to obtain a phone number for the account. So I then download MicroSip which is a free cilent and offers recording in MP3 format - note this is from microsip.org - don't use any other domain to download this piece of software. It's free, works well and offers auto recording in MP3 format. Then I setup a VOIPStudio account over at voipstudio.com - it was some hassle to get a number attached to the account - I wanted a local number in the UK, they needed some kind of proof of ties to the country where you get the number, I did a ticket with them and mentioned that surely my uk registered credit card would be enough and they agreed. Now I did the same with another SIP provider and after setting it all up they said they had put a verification code in the mail - as in normal old fashioned letter mail - it still hasn't arrived after half a week so they're out. Anyway I managed to test MicroSip with VOIPStudio and it works just fine, call recording and all. Now this type of system is more of a business orientated system - the kind of setup that callcenters often use but it is widely available for single users like myself and the VOIPStudio has a 2000 minute per month calling plan which should be enough for most months for me. So for those of you who are looking for this kind of solution - this is it, as described above. It's for calling land lines and mobiles in different countries at heavily discounted prices / included minutes - which is exactly what I used Skype for to mostly speak to elderly relatives who are not altering their phone systems in their lifetimes. this type of setup is the solution - forget Microsoft Teams - it's pure garbage and requires a business account and subscriptions to Microsoft 365 plus a Teams Phone license and even then subscription plans on top of all this - there seems to be like 4 levels of accounts, software and config to get through before getting Teams to do voice to landlines / mobiles so I quickly gave up on that.

Saville is not a good example, he got away with it while alive but lets make no mistake here, many thousands of people who knew him knew exactly what he was like and what he was up to. Then there's his victims, they all knew as well and they likely spoke to various people about his 'goings on' - and reported him. He was protected from 'up on high' for whatever reason which is why he got away with the things he did until he was dead, then the protection ended.