Guderian

Surely, as we've all recently learnt, if you're living in Thailand for more than 180 days a year then you're tax resident and you're not entitled to a refund, unless your entire taxable income for the year is less than 150K Baht. Or at least that seems like it will be the situation as of 1/1/24. OK, I know the tax bands are a bit more complicated than that, but it was a bit of a pain doing it 10 years ago, I certainly wouldn't bother now.

That wasn't my experience when I returned from a 6-week trip to the UK back in October. I needed a residence certificate to buy a new car, which needed a valid TM30, and the old TM30 slip in my passport from a year or so ago when I found I'd lost the old one (in 20 years here I've only ever done two TM30's), was fine. Of course, it often seems like there's rules for one person and different rules for the next, so you can never be sure.

I come under the Jomtien Immigration Office, and I've seen mixed reports on using the online appointment booking system. Some people say they've booked an appointment, but when they turned up for it they were told to go and join the queue to get a number like everyone else, so what was the point of making a booking? OTOH, I have also seen the rare report of someone who booked an appointment and - apparently - everything went OK. The obvious thing to do would be for me to PM those people and ask for more details of what went right or wrong, but those are posts made over months and no way can I find them again. Anyway, I need to get another annual retirement extension and Jomtien Office is like a zoo at this time of the year, so I thought I might try the online appointment booking system. I assume once you've selected a date and time, it allows you to print out an appointment slip, which you then take to the Immigration Office and bypass the lengthy queues. What happens then though, as you need a queue number that the IO calls when it's your turn, yet I don't think the online system can give you that? As far as I'm aware, at least in Jomtien, only the guy at the first queue desk can issue those, which may be why people who had made appointments were told to go and join the queue there. Or is there some way of getting a queue number when you turn up with your appointment slip without going back to the beginning? I know I could just try it and see, but I don't really want to waste an afternoon travelling there to be told to join a queue backing out of the door onto Soi 5, so if anyone knows how an online appointment translates into a queue number, I'd be grateful if you'd explain what I need to do. Thanks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxymoron

Exactly, people with names like Shinawatra, for example. A quick check with the Swiss banks for accounts in the name of one P. Chan Ocha should yield a few billion, too, lol.

Great, thanks. I've just ordered the decarboxylation machine recommended by @YaiJung, so I should be good to go when that arrives.

Interesting topic, thanks. I've been successfully making chocolate hash brownies for a while now. I don't decarboxylate the weed as I find the heat from the baking process does that for you quite effectively. Well, the brownies get me nice and mellow, anyway, lol. I'm now looking at making cannabutter as I want to try making shortbread and other cookies don't want bits of weed in them. One question: I know that when decarboxylating the weed you will degrade the THC if you heat it for too long or at too high a temperature. How about when you've already decarboxylated it and made your cannabutter or oil or whatever for baking and cooking, will the heat from baking the cookies in the oven reduce the effectiveness of the THC in the cannabutter you used to make the cookie dough?

I've been using Dr. Anna Jaruwan at Bangkok Hospital in Pattaya for around 15 years and she's excellent. Unfortunately, her clinic here is only for one day a week now, but I assume she's spending more time at whichever hospital she mainly works at in Bangkok. She has treated many people in Pattaya and I've never heard anyone say a bad word about her. I know one guy who was diagnosed with malignant melanoma and he swears she saved his life. If you can find out which hospital in Bangkok she mostly works at you would do well to book an appointment with her. Or book an appointment in Pattaya and enjoy a few days by the seaside at the same time. Her background and experience are explained in this article from the Pattaya Mail: https://www.pattayamail.com/451/who.shtml

Must be time to tear up all those double-taxation treaties. If the sweating farangs won't come here and voluntarily give the country a wodge of their earnings, then they can simply take it from all the gullible fools who decided to spend their retirement here.

When the outstanding money is sufficient to make it worthwhile, given the legal fees, we take them individually to court. It's expensive and time-consuming, but what else can the management and committee do? We looked at the options like denying their vehicles access, or cutting off their power, but those actions are illegal. Sure, we can stop collecting their garbage, but that usually inconveniences all the neighbours who do pay their fees, so it's not a great option. The village provides a great level of service for just 900 Baht/month, including free access for residents to a large swimming pool. Yet some people still seem to think it's not worth paying it, even though they know that eventually they will be forced to by the courts. The pathetic fine mandated by the Land Act simply isn't any kind of deterrent. Maybe they should change it to the usual Thai menu of options: a penalty of 10% of the outstanding balance, or 8 years in prison, or both. That might get them to cough up, lol

As of 1st January next year, when we evil foreigners all have to start paying Thai income tax on our pensions and savings, I'm sure we'll get full access to the Thai 30 Baht medical care scheme!

That must have been interesting in a Tom bar, lol!

Yeah, that's the experience in the village where I live. Villages are governed by the Land Act, so not the same rules as condos which come under the Condo Act. The fines we're allowed to charge non-payers under the Land Act are derisory, so to make it worth taking them to court we have to allow the non-payment to build up over several years, during which time our cash flow is screwed up. If they want to sell their house, of course, then any decent lawyer will ask the village to confirm that the owner doesn't owe anything, and they have to clear their debts including any fines at that time. But few Thais seem to sell houses, preferring to keep them as an investment and rent them out if they move elsewhere. Our committee did have one bright idea a few years back, in effect doubling the annual maintenance fee and then giving a 50% discount to people who paid it on time, so for most people nothing would change, but the non-payers would owe us twice as much and it would be worth taking them to court just for one year's unpaid fees. Sadly, they couldn't get it past the AGM, paying residents were too suspicious and the real objective and mechanism weren't explained very well.

He is listening, but only to the square-headed Chinese-Thai guy in the luxury wing of the hospital, not to anybody who actually cares about the country.

Meanwhile, in Pattaya, all is order and serenity, as usual...lol

It's hard to believe that this family has been removed from power not once but twice by the army, yet here they are back again getting up to their same old tricks, the Shinawatra bank account comes well before the interests of the Thai people. I guess the military have been instructed to remain in barracks no matter what, but the senior officers must be grinding their teeth with frustration.

When I did a search for Rayong nightlife, this image is about all that Professor Google could find... lol

Life's too short, sounds like it's time to move.

Hmm, it sounds to me like the garbage excuse stinks, lol.

I wonder if those timorous Chinese tourists who were scared off coming to Thailand by a film are reading all the stuff about nasty accidents happening to foreigners lately? If so, TAT should downgrade its Chinese arrivals forecast for next year from 9 million to maybe 9 thousand, lol.

The sea is free and surprisingly clean in the cool season.

That sounded promising until I read on a bit... it sounds like it'll just end up another glorified VAT refund scheme for tourists when they fly home. And there was silly old me hoping to see the import duty on foreign wine slashed. No such luck.

Probably taking a break to figure out exactly how much more than Thais the foreign goats will be willing to pay.

A TAT official busy making the next forecast for Chinese arrivals... lol

Time must be weighing heavily on Srettha's hands if he can waste a full day on this sort of low-level nonsense. That's what happens when you outsource all the important decisions to someone living in the luxury wing of a hospital, lol.