TallGuyJohninBKK

Following thru on your scenario above, however, if my Thai wife had a Schwab Intl account with U.S. holdings that produced interest or dividends, then she would be earning U.S. source income. Wouldn't that trigger a U.S. tax filing obligation on her part? Right now, I do married filing separately, file my own individual U.S. tax return, and tell the U.S. my wife doesn't have a U.S. tax filing obligation because she has no U.S. source income. But she does have a pretty well paid Thai job, and the last thing I want to do is trigger the U.S. IRS coming to take their cut of that alongside the Thai Revenue Dept.

I'm trying to follow the sum of what you're saying above... I've been thinking about having my Thai wife open a Schwab intl account, which ultimately should ease her inheriting the Schwab U.S. accounts that I have with her as my POD beneficiary. But one fear I had about that was the prospect of landing her, as a Thai citizen and resident, in the complicated and sometimes arcane world of U.S. IRS taxation. However, if I'm understanding you above, you're saying a Thai citizen NRA for U.S. purposes would have NO U.S. tax filing obligation based on a Schwab Intl account, and Schwab would simply automatically take out the DTA mandated withholding, and she wouldn't have any U.S. tax filing headaches. Is that correct as best as you understand it?

The Thai authorities seem to have a standard playbook they work from in these kinds of high-profile cases -- publicly announce the planned arrests in the news media ahead of time, ensuring that the influentials or connected folks involved have plenty of time to exit Thailand before the police come knocking....

Just curious... if anyone here has asked and gotten the answer: Re the Schwab international brokerage accounts, assuming the accountholder is listed as residing in Thailand, how would Schwab handle estate planning / succession for the account, and in what country jurisdiction-wise, given that apparently the international accounts don't allow for POD beneficiaries? And Thailand has no such POD process in its civil law framework.

This OP source rubbish purveyor has been at it for a long time relating to COVID... Here he was 4 years back still spouting nonsense: https://factcheck.afp.com/doc.afp.com.9PW8PJ Whenever I need authoritative info regarding COVID and vaccines, retired chiropractors are the very FIRST experts I seek out, of course!!! YEEESH!!! Interesting that the above AFP Fact Check report from Oct. 2021 concludes with the following tidbit: "AFP Fact Check has debunked more than 1,000 false or misleading claims about the virus and the vaccines." That was almost FOUR years ago. Just think how many thousands more there have been since then, including probably hundreds of nonsense posts right here that would not survive any actual fact checking, were it to be done. But hey, this is part of the "Off the Beaten Track" forum, where demonstrably false information and non-credible sources are officially encouraged!

That's the kind of non-"expert" that the OP poster here tirelessly spams the forum with. Because the actual scientists and medical researchers with expertise in COVID, infectious diseases and vaccines typically would regard all of his posting and cited sources as RUBBISH!

New York Times May 1, 2024 "There remains no evidence that the Wuhan institute stored any virus that could have become the coronavirus and caused Covid, with or without scientific tinkering, researchers have said. Scientists who specialize in tracing outbreaks have published analyses of early cases and viral genomes that they say point to the pandemic’s starting at an illegal wild-animal market in Wuhan. The presence of the coronavirus in samples from the market containing genetic material linked to raccoon dogs, they have said, is consistent with that scenario." https://archive.ph/Ho5gO#selection-7035.0-7043.51

I agree with your general comments above, SpikerM.... It's not just the fact that there have been SOME construction mishaps there resulting in fatalities. That's something that can and does happen at times. it's the fact that there CONTINUE to be mishap after mishap over a long period of many months, signaling that despite authorities' promises to "investigate" and take some unspecified action, NOTHING really has changed, and the same dangers remain unabated. The people responsible need to be held accountable, and the ongoing problems fixed. But clearly, that's simply not happening at all...

I've skipped several what otherwise would have been vacation trips to Hua Hin lately -- specifically because I simply won't drive or be driven on that road anymore, so long as the ongoing carnage continues there unabated.

Redfield is not in the same gutter league as McCullough, Kirsch and RFK Jr... But he's a medical doctor who has a documented history of letting his political and religious views get in the way of what objective science actually is showing. Hence, he wasn't very credible back then, and isn't any better today. Meet Trump’s New, Homophobic Public Health Quack The Centers for Disease Control will soon be run by a military doctor with a long history of pushing discriminatory AIDS policies. March 23, 2018 "The extraordinarily disruptive turnover in the Trump administration’s senior staff has officially reached the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The White House, having already cycled through one CDC director, has named its second: Robert Redfield, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel and former University of Maryland opioids and AIDS researcher. He is exactly the wrong person for the job. Amid an exploding influenza epidemic across the United States, an opioids crisis that has decreased the statistical life expectancy of Americans, and a budget crisis that twice compelled closure of critical laboratory and disease-fighting services, the CDC desperately needs a leader who can promise stability and expertise. Redfield represents the opposite; he is someone whose track record in HIV research and public health policy has been a scientific and moral failure." https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/03/23/meet-trumps-new-homophobic-public-health-quack/

Neither your source nor Redfield, the original useless Trump pawn as a CDC director during COVID, are very high on the credibility index... Or I guess better to say, both are pretty LOW on the credibility index: CDC woes bring Director Redfield’s troubled past as an AIDS researcher to light June 5, 2020 "...This is not the first time Redfield has been at the heart of a controversy over the government’s response to a virus epidemic. In the early 1990s, Redfield, then one of the Army’s top AIDS researchers, was at the center of a scandal over a purported HIV vaccine. Allegations that Redfield oversold data and cherry-picked results sparked an internal Army investigation into his work.  [emphasis added] The Army ultimately did not charge Redfield with scientific misconduct. But interviews with former colleagues with direct knowledge of the investigation, and a review of internal documents suggest Redfield knew he was misrepresenting the data behind the vaccine, even as he publicly touted its results— an effort that ultimately helped garner millions in federal funds for further testing. [emphasis added] Redfield was also found to be in violation of Army code over his relationship with a conservative AIDS nonprofit run by a prominent evangelical activist who has promoted abstinence-only solutions to the disease. In the end, the vaccine treatment did not pan out. Redfield has previously said that he stands by his work." [emphasis added] https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/04/politics/cdc-redfield-aids-walter-reed-army-investigation/index.html And of course, your "news" source, predictably, is even worse: https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/slay-news-bias-and-credibility/

Sources that I consider NON-credible are those who have been repeatedly found to have presented false and misleading info (and info that I myself can examine and find false and misleading by looking at the raw info they're relying on), regardless of what their views are... Fortunately, in your case, virtually all of the sources you present and rely on are either A] serial COVID and vaccine misinformers, or B] nobodies from the gutters of the internet who have no standing or experience to render credible opinions of the subjects at hand....

I guess Nate will be needing some of those tissues, now that he's apparently newly single again.... 🙂

@Presnock, when you talk about using SDFCU to transfer your funds to Thailand, what exact method are they (you) using -- an international wire transfer initiated from within SDFCU's online banking platform (if so, what's their fee for that)? Or some other route? TIA!

That's correct.... I don't believe Schwab International accounts allow POD beneficiaries... But, one thing a person supposedly could do -- which is something I'm exploring -- is have the Thai spouse open a Schwab international account in her name and based in Thailand. And then, the U.S. person with a Schwab account can name the Thai spouse as their POD beneficiary... And as I understand it, if the U.S. person dies in that scenario, Schwab would follow the U.S. account POD instructions and would move/transfer the U.S. person's Schwab accounts to the beneficiary Thai wife's Schwab international account, all done via an internal Schwab process.

In scientific and medical/public health fields, it's relatively easy for total misinformation peddling nutjobs like RFK Jr., Peter McCullough and Steve Kirsch, among others, to SOUND at first blush like they're making persuasive, cogent arguments -- at least to the typical lay audience. That's why it's important to have their key claims vetted by various credible, expert sources -- non-partisan fact checkers, major mainstream media outlets, public health/medical experts on topics like COVID and vaccines... And then see how those sources -- who know the detailed ins and outs of these kinds of topic -- to judge the key claims being made by the nutjobers and explain how they've misrepresented data or used data that isn't credible in the first place.... And then see what to make of the nutjobers' claims. I don't rely on any single source for assessing the veracity (or non-veracity) of their claims... But fortunately in the case of people like RFK Jr., Peter McCullough and Steve Kirsch et. al. on vaccine issues, pretty much, you're not going to find ANY credible source / institution that has supported their anti-vax nonsense or has found them credible... They're truly in an anti-vax nutjob world of their own.

Kirsch is simply a well-documented and serial (chronic) vaccine misinformer, period. Wikipedia was just the quickest and easiest reference to document Kirsch's patent nonsense. But for anyone who doesn't like or trust Wikipedia, there are plenty of other sources documenting Kirsch's patent anti-vax nonsense. Among them: https://science.feedback.org/?s=Steve+Kirsch https://www.factcheck.org/person/steve-kirsch/ https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/tag/Steve-Kirsch/

Steve Kirsch is another in your long roster of nutjob anti-vaxer sources with nearly as many fact-check repudiations of his nonsense claims as you have anti-vax posts here!!! "Steven Todd Kirsch (born 1956 in Los Angeles[1]) is an American entrepreneur. ... Kirsch has been both a philanthropic supporter of medical research, and a promoter of misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines. [emphasis added] Vaccine misinformation In May 2021, Kirsch posted an article online claiming that COVID-19 vaccines affect fertility, while also underplaying the vaccines' ability to prevent illness and death, both statements criticized by fact checkers as being inaccurate and misleading.[16] In September 2021, speaking at an FDA meeting and identifying himself as CETF's executive director, Kirsch claimed that the vaccines "kill twice as many as they save"; the FDA responded that Kirsch had misinterpreted data and that there was no evidence his statement was true.[12][17] Reuters assessed the claim as false.[17] In March 2023 Kirsch reported that he'd offered a woman sitting next to him on a first class Delta flight $100,000 to remove her mask for the entire flight. She refused.[18] [emphasis added] In October 2021, Kirsch founded the anti-vaccine group Vaccine Safety Research Foundation (VSRF),[19] which created ads depicting deaths the group attributed to vaccines.[20][21] Foundation advisors include Robert Malone, Peter McCullough, and Stephanie Seneff. Before this, in June 2021, Kirsch had appeared with Malone on the Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying podcast, which according to MIT Technical Review "introduced Kirsch to followers of the 'intellectual dark web'" and allowed him to access a "large and receptive audience to his claims about a fluvoxamine conspiracy".[12][15]" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Kirsch

Yes, understand what you're saying. In my case, the account that holds my 800K has automatic transactions recorded every month, those being the deposit of interest by my bank (this account pays monthly interest, not the more typical twice a year) and then the bank's corresponding deduction for Thai tax withholding. So over the course of the year, each and every month shows those activities in my account, and all I need to do is remember to update my passbook every 3+ months or so (to make sure to avoid consolidated bank book entry prints. And thus far at least, those self-provided bankbook photocopies of mine with monthly activity showing have satisfied them. Krungsri, the bank that handles my account, is weird. To get an official statement from them, they seemingly can't / wont print an annual statement, but instead print out 12 separate monthly statements, if I make a statements request at the branch... But bizarrely, I can go online with them and request to have them email me a 12-month single official account statement in PDF format... But in my experience, BKK CW seems to like the bank book photocopies more than the emailed PDF statement....

Maybe you can clarify exactly what you mean by "bank statements" in connection with retirement extension applications based on 800K THB bank deposits. In MANY years of processing retirement extensions at BKK CW, I've always brought my own photocopies of my bank book pages covering the prior year. And those have always been accepted by Immigration, along with presenting the original bankbook and the standard bank deposit confirmation letter. Separate from self-provided bank book photocopies, there also are the bank-provided account printouts or statements (the bank that has my deposit only issues monthly statements of their own). The only time I was ever asked for a bank-provided statement was once when there was a gap in my chronological bank book entries because of getting a new bankbook mid-year. So on that one instance, the officer wanted the bank-issued statements separate from the photocopies. But other than that, BKK CW has always accepted just my own self-provided bank book photocopies covering the prior year and nothing directly from the bank, other than the standard deposit verification letter and presenting my original bank book for inspection.

Ain't no way!!! This guy and his family are super rich, even by Thai standards. Dunno how or where it will come from... But somehow, he'll end up walking away from all this with something far less than the OP report says. PS - FWIW, the family involved here is the main Thai business entity behind both the Pizza Hut and Taco Bell operations in Thailand. https://www.thoresen.com/en/about-tta/business-overview/food-beverage https://www.businessinsider.com/r-taco-bells-first-thailand-outlet-to-serve-spicy-fare-and-local-beer-2019-1

I believe the BMA was publicly talking a couple weeks back about expecting to finish clearing the debris by the end of April. From the OP report above, it seems pretty clear that deadline will have come and gone unmet. Collapsed building expected to be cleared out by the end of April: BMA WEDNESDAY, APRIL 09, 2025 https://www.nationthailand.com/thailand/bangkok/40048525

I have no "outrage" over the Ghost Tower or idiot farangs who trespass and break other Thai laws at their own peril. Perhaps a bit of "dismay." However, I DO have "outrage," over the probable 100 or so workers who will end up being declared dead in the collapse of the State Audit Office Building in BKK, and probably no one to end up facing serious legal consequence for that. That's something to legitimately get "outraged" over....

And each and every time as with the latest case, the authorities say an INVESTIGATION will be launched... But AFAIK, we've never heard what the actual findings were from any of the prior fatalities/investigations there.... And we certainly haven't heard of anyone actually being held responsible for the myriad of failings/deaths there.

Thailand's own Deaths Highway!