Ricardo

On 6/12/2025 at 10:13 AM, Hamma said:

It’s not a High Speed Railway, even though they keep calling it High Speed. The LCR travels through Laos at 150 km/h. High Speed Railways are defined as going more than 250 km/h in countries that actually have them, China, Japan, Europe.

Just to add that some sections of the new LCR-line are only single-track  ...

Apologies, double-post

On 5/23/2025 at 10:08 PM, BayArea said:

we have many posters on this forum who despised Trump so much that any chance they get to discredit him regardless of topic, they do it without any hesitation. 

like we said, he's living rent free in their head. 

I would like to point out that, just because you disagree with their (and many others') opinion, does not make them wrong in what they say.  We are all entitled to our opinions.

What you (and many others) describe as "living rent free in their head", I would suggest is no more than taking a healthy interest, in the actions of someone who appears to be hell-bent on leading that country to chaos, having recently been re-elected by a narrow-margin on that policy-platform.

Trump is destroying alliances & trading-patterns which took several decades to build-up, I personally would take an interest, if only because it seriously impacts my investments & retirement-funds !

Time will show, fairly soon IMO, who is right anyway.

This old chestnut, again ?  IIRC it was proposed, as a street-circuit in Bangkok, some 20-years ago !  

Oh well, I guess it sells newspapers.  

45 minutes ago, The Cyclist said:

 

The next thing will be a welfare state, a National Pension Scheme and all manner of other expensive gambits.

 

Just to point out that Thailand already has a pension-system, IIRC it pays about B600 per-month, to Over-60s ?

I was once in a similar situation myself, and I would strongly recommend the OP to visit a visa-agent, and ask whether they could help solve the problem. 

This will definitely incur a 'special administrative fee', if they can indeed help you !  

6 hours ago, Bday Prang said:

The only contribution France made to the war was to provide inspiration for a popular British sitcom, which took the piss out of all nationalities involved including ourselves of course.

I doubt the BBC has any plans to repeat any episodes lol

In fact that series is still being re-run, on UK-TV, very funny !  

On 5/14/2025 at 12:54 PM, Chelseafan said:

Wonder how the TAT can spin this ?

Thai tourist-industry helps reduce carbon-emissions ?   

4 hours ago, PETERTHEEATER said:

Someone gave AI the 'hub' word. We haven't had one for a while.

Thailand is aiming to become a Hub of AI-writing in S.E.Asia, sometime this century.  Hubba-Hubba !  

3 hours ago, redwood1 said:

 

Never heard of a overseas bank wanting a Thai TIN  or even giving a rats azz if you have one or not....

They have known (from my residential-address) for twenty-years that I was tax-resident in Thailand, and have long said that they needed to know my Thai T.I.N., so that they could report certain information annually under the  enhanced-C.R.S. requirements.

I had repeatedly explained to them that, since my funds sent to Thailand to live upon were always prior-year-funds, I had been able to live here for twenty-years but have never been legally-required to make a tax-return here, hence previously no T.I.N. could be obtained.  They had found this odd, but had long accepted my word on it !

They also report information to H.M.R.C. in the mainland-UK, since that is where some of my annual-income arises, although I've been assured by HMRC recently that they do not want me to make an annual tax-return there. 

Perhaps, in recent years, banks have been required to improve their reporting & Know-Your-Client information, as part of some global-drive against money-laundering or tax-evasion ?  Which might increase pressure upon them ?

2 hours ago, cliveshep said:

I'm a retired Brit on a state pension, not large and much of it goes to support my wife's two spinster sisters. Given we are all struggling on one meagre UK basic pension and given the way the exchange rate has hit us badly I really want to know what allowances would be mine, and what the sisters. Thinking to transfer the pension in 3 sums, one to me, one to my wife (who is the one who spends it anyway as she is in charge of bills) and one to my sil. Thinking is if it is transferred from the UK to 3 people instead of just me the fees might cost a little more with WISE but all 3  would have allowances to set against the money. We just cannot afford to lose any more to uncontrolled bills. Trump has screwed the exchange rate it seems.

 

So - what at age 79 would be the total amount I could transfer to my account before incurring a tax liability?

Ditto my wife and ditto her sister. Some good and sound correct advice would enable me to split the pension sensibly whereas if I transferred it all to me as I have been doing and then disbursed it I could be into a world of grief perhaps? 

If you made a transfer to your wife or sisters, describe it as a "Gift", there's supposed to be a B10-million allowance for that.

So use your own full-allowance, see Anchadian's post above, then make a suitable 'Gift' to one of the sisters ?

19 hours ago, KhunHeineken said:

 

You read too much into my word "dodging." 

In that case, I apologise, I did indeed read it as being mildly critical.

15 hours ago, motdaeng said:

 

nice to have a real tax expert here. you seem very confident about your claim ... 

could you provide some sources? thanks.

It's always good to chat with a fellow professional-accountant, like yourself.

Let's turn your question around, instead.

The TRD wants to tax expats on transfers into Thailand, agreed ?

Please explain, with sources, how a transaction in a foreign-currency taking place outside Thailand, and which is paid-for with a credit-card from a non-Thai bank, creates a potentially-taxable (or reportable) transfer into Thailand ?  

Just to add another thought, one might perhaps  'Gift'  funds from overseas, to an adult (defined as over-18 ?) child living here, for them to fund their Thai-university costs without it being viewed (for tax purposes) as your own spending ?

53 minutes ago, KhunHeineken said:

What if you are flying Thai Airways for overseas trips?  Are those funds not transferred to Thailand? 

Currently flying frequently, using China-Eastern, haven't flown Thai for several years.  But even so, if I bought a ticket on them in Sterling, via an overseas-OTA and using an overseas-bank credit-card, then I definitely haven't transferred any money into Thailand which might be assessable, have I ?  The airline itself would probably only use the funds overseas, paying landing-charges or fuel-bills or catering-costs overseas, but it certainly couldn't be viewed (or reported by MasterCard to the TRD) as me transferring funds into Thailand.  What TG uses their income for is their problem, not ours.

No, I obviously didn't make myself very clear, in my post responding to KannikaP , Sorry about that !   I generally agree with what he said, about people being able to live simpler-lives here, within the avoiding-tax limits (mine's B500k p.a.).  But some things he listed like foreign-travel or overseas-school/uni-fees for our kids, well those can potentially be funded/paid-for without the money ever coming near Thailand, so you can avoid risking their becoming assessable.

OK that doesn't apply to everybody,  but it is possible for some people to spend money on overseas-activities, without the money being generated here or brought into Thailand.  You can sometimes have a better standard-of-living, than the level he had suggested, without it increasing your transfers into-Thailand.  In my own case, I certainly do.

4 hours ago, KannikaP said:

Depends on your way of life, what you are happy with, is your Mrs working, have you paid house, bike and car off. Kids finished school. How many foreign trips. 

Just to point out that foreign-trips, financed via offshore-income & paid-for using foreign credit-cards, don't really count since the funds are never transferred into Thailand.

I also pay for the university-costs of one of my sons, entirely using overseas-generated funds, which never come near Thailand.  So aren't assessable, either.

Perhaps the USA, as the World's biggest oil-producer, should join OPEC if he wants to have more influence ?  

I have a feeling of deja-vue, coming on once again.  "Everyone will have a laptop like mine", she said as she held up a B35k piece of hardware, instead some students got a B3k Chinese knock-off which rapidly became disfunctional  ...  the old scams are the goodies, eh ?  

I well recall PM-Samak's cooking-shows, and friendly chats to the nation, he was a Thaksin-lite temporary-substitute back when Thaksin was on a long investment-tour of Africa & the Middle-East.  

12 minutes ago, redwood1 said:

 

Anyone who does not agree with you....It now seems is a internet pixel....

I'm not a pixel, I'm a leprechaun or boggart, myself !  

14 hours ago, TheAppletons said:

 

  My address is "registered" via the TM-30.  Yours isn't?

Every tourist who comes in for a week's visit, surely the hotel reports your presence on your first-night, yet they're not tax-resident at all  ...  so TM30 would be pretty-useless for looking for possible tax-residents ?

Even filing a TM47 would just mean a visitor was staying more-than 90-days or-so in-one-go, but perhaps still not visiting long-enough to become  tax-resident here, so either would mean that the TRD would be searching for us farang-needles in a very-large haystack of data ? 

I'm hoping for Santa's present to me to be, that the TRD announce this whole thing will just go-away !  

Merry Christmas, everyone !