AyG

Thanks. I've been mispelling ฤๅษี all these years as ฤษี. Glad to finally have a use for that key.

Not mispelling. Both forms are given in the Royal Institute dictionary. I rather suspect that the ฤษี form is these days more commonly used.

Have a look at the relevant page on the SCB website - http://www.scb.co.th/en/personal-banking/loans/personal-loans/housing-loans

You need six months of paperwork.

You can calculate the repayment amounts using the current MLR, also available on the SCB website.

A prudent bank will only lend as much as the borrower can afford to service, depending on circumstances. Typically one would expect the income to be at least 3 times the monthly mortgage payments. Banks here tend to be more generous, however, with government workers because of the higher job security.

Pretty well all Chinese languages are tonal, as are Vietnamese and Lao (which, of course, is very closely related to Thai).

These languages, however, differ in the type and number of tones. For example, Vietnamese has a half-rising tone (starts low and rises to midrange) which Thai doesn't have.

Other languages in East & South East Asia are not tonal, including Bahasa Malaysia, Khmer, Burmese, Japanese & Korean.

For what it's worth, Glenfiddich isn't that much more expensive in Thailand than in the UK. In the UK it's about GBP 32 for 70 cl of the 12 year old, and 2,070 Baht (approx GBP 42) in Villa supermarket. The price differential is much worse for decent quality wine, so, in my opinion, it always makes more sense to bring wine rather than spirits. I usually pack a bottle of champagne in my suitcase.

Are you trying to give the address of a local bank branch? If so, this is probably wrong. The SWIFT code (if that's how the payment is being made) is associated with the bank's head office, and that's the address that should be used.

If they do introduce a new note, it'll probably be a similar fiasco as the 2 Baht coin: make it virtually indistinguishable from existing currency in both colour and size; then redesign it so it looks different; and finally decide to withdraw it.

If Thida was in charge she could take a leaf out of the old Soviet book and introduce a 3 baht note.

At least no Thai politician would be as crazy as Burma's Ne Win who introduced 45 and 90 Kyat notes in 1988 because a fortune teller told him he'd live to 90 if he did so.

Of course, it seems to have worked: Ne Win lived to about 92. (His date of birth is uncertain.) Unfortunately, this "reform" further crippled Burma's economy.

And of course, no Thai politician would every do anything to harm Thailand's economy - not even Newin Chidchob who was named after Burma's Ne Win.

If they do introduce a new note, it'll probably be a similar fiasco as the 2 Baht coin: make it virtually indistinguishable from existing currency in both colour and size; then redesign it so it looks different; and finally decide to withdraw it.

Strange then how one client has just taken 35% TFC from his Mauritius based QROPs? Perhaps another example of the QROPs minefield? Not my speciality so I'm as unsure as the next person!

The 30% limit was not applied retrospectively. It applies, however, to all QROPS taken out after April this year.

Up to 35% tax free cash is commonplace.

No. The 2012 budget changed that. The limit's 30%. (70% of the funds must be invested to provide an "income for life".) Still, that's better than the 25% permitted for UK pensions.

I just need a solution, I am really fed with paying tax interests on my money

what is the solution then?

As has been posted before, first step is to go to your embassy. Get a letter from them confirming your residence. Get a certified translation from Slovene to English or German. Send original and translation to your bank.

Alternatively, move your money out of the European Union to a country which doesn't tax interest on bank account income.

Simply get a 'certificate of residency' from any thai immigration centre.

Not that straightforward. You have to be doing 90 day reporting to get the certificate. The OP doesn't seem to be doing this. Plus the certificate will be in Thai.

I need papers in English, I guess nobody will issue them in german right in Thailand?

Get them in Thai, then get an officially certified translation into German or English.

I have Austrian bank

Why would an Austrian bank want documents in English (as in the original posting)? Surely they'd want them in German. Something doesn't make sense here.

I assume you are only talking about tax on interest paid on your bank account. I found this on line at what appears to be a UK govt web site: Interest Tax

I extracted the paragraph below. The web site covers many other situations

If you're a non-taxpayer

If your level of income means that you don't need to pay tax, you can complete a form 'R85 - Getting your interest without tax taken off'. If you've already had tax taken off your interest, you will be able to claim it back.

Form R85 is only for UK residents; the form for non-residents is R105. However, in my experience, if the bank has an offshore operation it usually won't accept the R105 and will say you should transfer your account to the offshore bank.

You can get a residency letter from the British Embassy - at a steep cost. Unless you're fabulously wealthy, the cost of the letter is likely to be more than the tax saved.

ก้าวหน้า

You say all QROPS in Guernsey were derecognised earlier this year, did that include existing

Policies or just new business?.

Guernsey can take no new QROPS business. However, the existing QROPS are unaffected - though technically they're not QROPS any more since the "R" in QROPS stands for "recognised".

HMRC has confirmed all existing QROPS transfers to Guernsey remain valid, and that it won't be imposing the (ouch!!!) 55% tax charge that were imposed when Singapore QROPS were derecognised.

Incidentally, HMRC delisted all Cyprus QROPS last month. In this case it's unclear whether the 55% tax charge will be applied or not. This case is particularly interesting, since it's the first time HMRC has gone after QROPS within the European Union. Previously people had thought that EU QROPS would be safe; so now nowhere's 100% secure.

And my crystal ball tells me that once all the QROPS are gone, it'll be QNUPS next.

the present FA (Abbey) has advised I should be receiving about 8% return after all costs and taxes

A statement like this immediately sets off alarm bells for me. This would suggest a return before costs of perhaps 10% which is pretty difficult to obtain consistently without taking on a significant degree of risk - not appropriate if this is a pension you're going to be relying upon in future years to put food on the table and a roof over your head. I'm guessing that you're not planning on managing your own investments, so this will introduce yet another layer of fees. Also, most prepackaged investment allocations don't take into account the investor's home economy and currency; it's not a good idea to have your investments geared towards the European economy when you live in SE Asia, for example. Also, does the investment properly take into account how long it is before you retire? If you have a longer period before retirement, then it's appropriate to take on more risk, and to reduce the risk level of you approach retirement and beyond. (Usually that translates into having a higher proportion of equities in your portfolio when you're younger, and reducing this proportion as you get older, increasing the proportion of the portfolio in bonds.)

In short, do you really understand what investment is being proposed? If not, don't sign.

And if you post details of the type of investment proposed, then I'm sure that I, or someone else, will be able to provide an opinion.

Edit: and I've just realised that you wrote "after all ... taxes". You don't mention where you're resident. If it's Thailand, then there should be no taxes on income to worry about, so why mention "after taxes"? Of course, if you're resident in Spain, that's a different matter. Incidentally, what jurisdiction is your adviser recommending for your QROPS?

I can't suggest a financial adviser, but I would like to share a few thoughts:

(1) Act quickly. The UK government seems to have a vendetta against QROPS, wanting to take away all their tax advantages, and making the administration more onerous (and hence more expensive for the client). This year all QROPS in Guernsey were derecognised, and things with Malta looked very dodgy for a couple of months - personally, I'm still not sure if Malta's out of the woods or not. People wanting to take out QROPS are increasingly being pushed towards less secure, less well-regulated parts of the world.

(2) If possible, get your financial adviser to work on a fixed cost basis - all adviser commission will then be rebated to you. If your finances are fairly simple, say transferring a couple of existing pension funds and using a single custodian, then the charges will probably be in the region of GBP 500 to GBP 1,000. That's not including the QROPS provider's setup charge which will vary according exactly what facilities are being provided, but GBP 1,000 to set up and GBP 1,000 per year to run (paid in advance) is fairly typical. The level of charges usually make transferring to a QROPS not a good idea for people with a pension pot of less than about GBP 1,000.

(3) Make sure that you understand all charges. There are the initial charges, which include: financial adviser fee and/or commission, pension provider setup charges, custodian setup charges, charges for transferring investments in specie (from current pension fund and from new custodian) and/or costs of selling investments and reinvesting (initial commission on purchase, bid/offer spread, custodian charge on purchase). Some pensions will also charge you for closing your account with them. Then for the ongoing charges, there are QROPS provider charges, custodian platform charges, transaction costs and trail commission (which may be rebated in part). There may also be charges from the QROPS provider, for example, for transferring your pension to your bank account (typically GBP 25 per transfer - though some will charge much, much higher than this if you take your pension more than once a year).

(4) You may well find that your financial adviser says that you'll be better off sticking with your existing arrangements. If that happens, you can still proceed by becoming an "insistent client" to use the jargon. You'll then need to sign a letter which absolves the adviser if you end up financially worse off than you otherwise would have been.

(5) Be aware that in the current economic climate, extremely low government bond yields mean that the amount of pension you can withdraw each year has plunged. Make yourself familiar with the GAD tables and the rules surrounding the level of income you can take. Make sure that you're happy with the pathetic level of income you're now allowed from your pension fund. In most cases if you won't have a secured pension from alternative source(s) of GBP 20,000 per annum, it makes sense to withdraw the maximum lump sum available (25% or 30%, according to jurisdiction) and invest it elsewhere offshore. If doing so would take your pension pot below GBP 100,000 think carefully about the effect of the level of charges on the remaining pension pot.

Got my reentry permit earlier today having booked an appointment online earlier in the week. I am very pleased with how smoothly things went. OK, not quite the 5 minute turnaround promised, closer to 10, but I'm not complaining.

The desk handling the on-line applications is the same one used to pick up approved applications, so if someone's picking up an application at your appointed time, you may have to wait a few moments. Also, it looks like the appointment system will allow multiple applications to book the same appointment time. (I'm basing that upon the appointment reference number which is basically the date, time and another digit.) I suspect that that means that things might take a bit longer when the system becomes more popular. Still, a promising start.

The system was created in 1939, extending the 1932 General System. It never took off, and today all one encounters is the General System as is used (albeit inconsistently) for road signs. All the diacritical marks were removed in the 1968 revision of the standard. The current standard is dated 1999.

To the best of my knowledge the entry fee to funds, often around 5%, is set aside not to strengthen the abilities of the fund, but for payment of the introducer/financial advisor/agent. Because of the setup even if you enter direct without an introduction you still pay...

Yes, you pay a steep initial commission (and I've seen up to 7.5%) if you use a financial adviser (though many financial advisers will rebate some or all of this commission) or buy direct from the fund management group. However, for many years now investors have been able to buy through platforms where the initial commission is dramatically reduced. I haven't paid more than 0.5% now for at least 10 years.

Regarding investing locally, given the massive tax benefits of RMF/LTF and 12/7 type schemes that is partly why salaried staff tend to invest in these ahead of mutual funds and so forth

All true. However, you should never the the "tax benefits" tail wag the "investment decision" donkey. One should also consider other factors such as diversification, charges, quality of the fund managers concerned, security of your investments including political risk ... and then consider diversification again.

Goodness, that website's confusing. Strange way of entering dates. The UK appearing under the letter "T" as "THE UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN". No obvious option for "Non-immigrant B". (I'm guessing it's NON-IMMIGRANT-90.) Parts of the address are in Roman script - others in Thai. And a fair smattering of dodgy English. And you can book an appointment for 12 or 12:30 when they're at lunch.

Still, it's a great improvement over the old "queue for a couple of hours - or longer if we go to lunch" system.

The temperature simple changes the speed of fermentation. If you put it in the fridge the fermentation will be very, very slow. Just leave it in the coolest place you can find. Press it down regularly to keep it moist. And expect it to be ready to transfer to the fridge sooner than the recipe says.

Look for "Chelyabinsk State Symphony Orchestra" then you get 488 hits

488 hits, and not one of them remotely encouraging. I think I'll give this concert a miss.

Thanks all for the feedback.