maphraw

Sorry about the typo, the letter from the US Embassy was 1,700Baht.

By the way, my retirement extension does not say "prohibited from working", It merely states that I am required to do my 90 days and if I leave the country and want to come back I need to get an exit re-entry visa. This is not to say that I think I am alowed to work. I am just telling you what the extension in my passport says. I remember reading somewhere on this forum that it is up to the Labor Department as to weather one can work on a retirement extension, not Immigration. But I find that hard to believe. Anyone know anything about this?

Sorry. I didn't mention that I had to fill in a TM.7.and pay 1,900 Baht. I think everyone must fill in one of these no matter what kind of extended stay. And I failed to mention that I had to pick up my passport and extension the next day. Sorry about leaving these details out. And the letter from the US Embassy was $1,700.

Yesterday I went to Jomthien Immigration with my documents for the retirement visa and was met at the entrance by a young novice who glanced at my documents, gave me a number and told me to proceed to desk 8. I sat down and an elderly European man asked to look at my passport and documents and then gave them to a young Thai man out of uniform sitting outside of the desk who went through the copy of my passport with a fine tooth comb highlighting certain dates. He then told me to go to the back and give my passport and my document from the the Labor Department which showed that my permit had been cancelled to a stern looking woman behind a desk. She stamped and signed and stamped again my visa and signed and stamped it again. My visa was then cancelled and she then signed and stamped my work permit document. My existing visa had to cancelled because I no longer had a work permit. She then handed my passport to another woman who examined my passport and then signed it and returned the documents to the young Thai man at desk 8. He then looked carefully at my letter from the US Embassy which shows I have sufficient funds to support myself. He then asked me for proof of address. Might be a big problem I thought since I don't have a rental agreement or an electricity bill with my address on it. I showed him a statement from Siam Commercial Bank. Not good enough he said. He then asked me if I had a Thai drivers licence and I said I did and I just so happened to have made a copy of my drivers licence that morning. He looked at it, asked me to sign it. He then handed everything to an official behind the desk and gave me a number and told me to pick up my passport with my retirement visa today at 2;pm

Documents need:

1 copy of passport

Letter from US Embassy

Original work permit document from Labour Department

Copy of drivers licence

Time: 15 minutes.

I don't see why I would have to go out if I have a letter from my employer stating that today is the last day of work for me and I have the document for the work permit that has been cancelled. Also, if I have cancelled the work permit today, I am not allowed to stay another day or it is an overstay since my visa will expire August 21st, My understanding is that once the work permit has been cancelled, any remaining time on your visa is no longer valid. This is getting down to the wire, About three more hours until Immigration closes. I may have to go to Immigration and ask for a 7 day extension and then sort out my options. My employer is pretty hopeless getting the proper documentation ready. The letter eplxaining that my contract has been terminated has yet to be typed.

Thanks for getting back to me so quickly. Kind regards.

Today is the last day of work for me and the company secretary has gone to the labor department to return my work permit. She is still at the Labor Dept so she has just sent me a scan of the document which I need to take to the Immigration department in Jomthien. Do you think they will accept a scan. I am a bit pressed for time as I have to rush to Immigration before they close. I am hoping that she will return with the original within a few hours so i don't have to resort to using the scan copy. What do you think? I doubt they would accept the scan. This has been a problem at work with people finishing their contract and returning the work permit and getting to Immigration in the same day.

If I want to apply for a 7-day extension after completing a contract with a Thai company and returning my work permit to the Labour Department what form would I need to fill out? Would it be the TM.7 Any idea what the fee is? The Jomthin Immigration people told me I could apply for a retirement visa or get a 7-day extension presumably to have time to decide what I want to do or what kind of visa I am eligible to apply for.

I am sorry for my naivete but what exactly is a double entry tourist visa. There have been a serious disagreements here at work as to what it entails and how many one can get . My understanding is you go to Laos, for example, get a two month tourist visa, extend it for another 30 days in Thailand, and then go back to Laos and start over. Sorry but i haven't done a tourist visa for more than 17 years so I'm a bit rusty.

Can the 400,000 Baht in the bank account be in a joint account with the Thai wife?

You mean I could do a quick border hop, get a visa exempt entry and then convert it to a non immigrant visa without leaving Thailand? You also mentioned that I might have to go out on a single entry non-o visa based on being over 50. Could you elaborate on what you mean by that and what that kind of visa that entails.

I am going to Jomthien Immigration again to see if i can get some clarification regarding the retirement visa and other options. I'm hoping that I don't find out at the very last minute that I have to leave the country. Thanks again for your info.

I'll be doing the retirement extension at Jomthien. I went to Jomthien Immigration last week and explained that my employer is terminating my contract at the end of the month, seven weeks before the official completion date. He seemed to think it would be no problem getting the retirement extension as long as I have proof that I have returned my work permit and that I have the minimum monthly income coming into Thailand from abroad. I will be using a letter from the US Embassy which states that I have more than the minimum monthly income requirements. I told him that I was married to a Thai and he suggested that I bring the original marriage certificate. He then asked me how much money I had in the bank in Thailand and I told him that I have over a million Baht but that the money is in joint accounts with my wife. He said it didn't mater but I should bring the bank books in just in case. He was a younger official and didn't seem too sure of himself. As I mentioned on another post, I did the retirement extension with the letter from the US Embassy and the TM 7 application and it was a dead easy. No questions asked. I m hoping that, in a worse case scenario where they don't approve my retirement extension request, I might be able to get some type of visa based on my marriage certificate and some money in the bank. Any suggestions? Thanks for commenting on my posts.

Thanks for your comment. But if I am applying for a new visa (well, a retirement extension) the last day of work and give them my work permit document along with the TM application it wouldn't really matter if I had a letter from my employer. Anyway, I am going to ask our company secretary to type the letter just in case.

Are your sure I need a letter from my employee stating my last day of employment? The Last time I finished a contract they only wanted the document from the Labour Dept. showing that I had returned my wok permit. But in order to get a new visa I had to run to the Labour dept and return the work permit, get the document, and then rush to immigration the same day with my visa application form along with my document from the Labour Dept. It had to be done on the same day.

My contract with a Thai company will finish at the end of the month and I will be going to Jomthiem Immigration with evidence that my work permit has been returned to the Labor department. I am tentatively planning to apply for a retirement 'extension' (I now realize it is an 'extension' and not a visa) and bring a letter from the American Embassy guaranteeing that I have sufficient funds as stipulated by Thai Immigration. Should I decide not to apply for the retirement visa I am wondering what kind of extension of stay I would be eligible for. I have read on these pages that I might be able to get a 7-day extension. And then, since I am legally married to a Thai, I could get a 60-day extension (or visa?)

I am going to apply for a retirement visa at the end of the month. I am wondering if Thai Immigration still accept a letter from the US Embassy stating that I have sufficient funds coming into the Kingdom every month. Actually, I applied for a retirement visa three years ago with the letter from the US Embassy and it was a piece of cake. No problem. But three months latter my former employer asked me to come back to work so I had to cancel the retirement visa.I am wondering if there have been any changes regarding the letter from the US Embassy or whether Thai Immigration may want additional documentation.

I will be completing my contract with a Thai company end of July. I am wondering what I might have to do to stay in the Kingdom. Would I have to leave Thailand and get a Non O in Laos for example. Would I need evidence that my work permit has been returned to the Labour Department. Would I need evidence that I have paid my taxes. If I want to apply for a marriage visa ( I have a Thai wife and the marriage is registered) would I have to leave the country? And if I want to apply for a retirement visa would I have to leave the country? Any advice/suggestions would be appreciated.

I went back and looked at my 2013 return. An accountant did my retunr last year. He completed a Form 8621 for our Thai mutual fund. I remember him telling me that the IRS has an unusual way of calculating foreign mutual funds. He said they look at the amount you have in the fund in the very beginning of the tax year and then compare it with the amount you have in the fund at the end of the tax year. That is what he put into the Form 8621. Those two figures and the difference. So that is what I did. Exactly what he did. The fund paid subsatntial dividends so I, probabaly erroniously, included them on schedule B where I put interest and dividends from my American mutual funds. I did this to be on the safe side. I googled 'Form 8621' and an awful lot of people have no idea how to complete the form or get the kind of information form the mutual funds that is required to complete it correctly.

Anyway, I ended up not owing any taxes.

I received a W-9 form from the Thai mutual fund that I have in a joint account with my Thai wife. We have more than $10000 in the fund. I signed it and then returned it to them. I called the mutual fund company and asked them what information they provided to the IRS or Treasury Dept.--dividends, capital gains etc. They said they don't provide the information to the US government. They send it to the Bank of Thailand which in turn sends it to the US. She then said they have yet to send any of the information about our mutual fund to the Bank of Thailand. I also have four bank accounts in Thailand and none of them has given me a W-9 form to fill out.

I have just finished doing my tax return for the IRS and I was meant to complete a form 8621 for foreign mutual funds. If you could figure out how to correctly complete this form I will give you $500.Turbo Tax would not complete the Form 8621 for my mutual fund.They told me I would have to print it and fill it out myself. I also have four bank accounts in Thailand and none of them has given me a W-9 form to fill out.

I have completed the FBAR thing and sent it into the Treasury Dept. as required and I have included all of my interest from my Thai bank accounts and some information about my mutual fund on my 2014 IRS tax return.

"while others shouted inappropriate comments towards her." How dare they shout such comments. Why the picture of an American passport I wonder.

I just bought a new Samsung smart phone at the AIS centre in Central Festival. I am using my old phone number from my ancient 2G phone. They put in a temporary Sim, gave me another new Sim that I have to insert into the phone after about three days. They said they would notify me by SMS when to put the new Sim into the phone. When I left, I stopped at a 7/11 and bought a 100 Baht 1/2 phone slip to top up my account. I called my wife and chatted for a few minutes. In about 2 hours I got a message from AIS telling me that they will give me an emergency 20 Baht to use until I put more money into the phone. The next day I bought a new 1/2 card, topped up the phone called my wife, talked to her for about five minutes. At the end of the day I got another message from AIS saying that i had used up my 1/2 account but they would give me another 20 Baht worth of call time until I topped up my account. Knowing something must be wrong I waited for my wife to call me. In the meantime I bought another 100 Baht 1/2 call card, inserted the number and now had another 80 Baht worth of calls. I called my wife, talked for about three minutes and the next morning I got a message from AIS saying that I needed to top up my account but they would again provide 20 baht worth of time until I topped up my account again. Does anyone know what is going on? Three hundred baht for three phone calls that did not exceed 12 minutes of telephone conversation. I sent no SMS messages either. Since it is a brand new smart phone I thought I must have inadvertently been pressing things that were triggering unwanted calls or messages. Of course, there was no user manual that came with the phone. Can anyone suggest why this new marvel of technology is gobbling up my 1/2 phone cards?

The Siam Commercial Bank that I use said that I could use my debit card and passport to get some cash but the fee would be more than the fees that are charged when using their ATM. I didn't asked how much the fee is.

I got it. I went to a downloaded PDF document, right clicked and then made adobe the default pdf reader. I was then able to download the FBAR. Amazing. As usual. it was right under my nose.

I wonder what all of the troll posts were about. I must have annoyed the hell out of some of the posters with my computer ignorance.

Once again JimGant, thanks for your comments--suggestions!

.Thanks very much for your reply. I went back http://bsaefiling.fi...gFBARFiler.html

click on: How to file the FBAR Electronically and followed their directions. The adobe version is enabled. I then tried to download the FBAR again but the same warning appeared.

Please wait... If this message is not eventually replaced by the proper contents of the document, your PDF viewer may not be able to display this type of document. You can upgrade to the latest version of Adobe Reader for Windows®, Mac, or Linux® by visitinghttp://www.adobe.com...reader_download. For more assistance with Adobe Reader visit http://www.adobe.com/go/acrreader. Windows is either a registered trademark or a trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries."

I am not quite sure what you meant when you said 'tweak your browser to default to Adobe Reader for pdf files?' I just don't know how to do this despite playing around with my computer and the default options etc. I remember downloading the FBAR at work last year. It took me and the computer guy(who is very good) at work a couple of hours to download it. But we now have new management and new computers and I have to get permission to download the Adobe reader from our admin people which I am going to try and do today.

I can't understand why this is so difficult but I am clearly pretty hopeless with anything other than very basic computer skills.

Once again,thanks for your advice and your time. It's always helpful.

I have been trying to download the baseline FBAR thing and I just downloaded an Adobe reader (version 11.0.10) but when I went to download the FBAR all I get is the following;

"Please wait... If this message is not eventually replaced by the proper contents of the document, your PDF viewer may not be able to display this type of document. You can upgrade to the latest version of Adobe Reader for Windows®, Mac, or Linux® by visiting http://www.adobe.com/go/reader_download. For more assistance with Adobe Reader visit http://www.adobe.com/go/acrreader. Windows is either a registered trademark or a trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries."

This happened last year and I had to call the computer guy at work and we finally got it downloaded but it took about an hour. We now have new management and new computers.So I tried to download it on my home computer and I got the same message. I wonder what I am doing wrong. It is very frustrating.

I have no idea what a PDF viewer is and if it cannot display the FBAR document what am I supposed to do. How do I get the appropriate PDF viewer.

Based on some the of the posts above, existing Thai bank accounts that were opened before FBAR requirements will not be reporting your financial information to the US government. So I guess I could keep hundreds of thousands of dollars in my Thai bank accounts that existed before the FBAR requirements and it would go undetected by the IRS. I have a Siam Commercial Bank account that I opened 14 years ago and I use it quite a bit. They have never asked me for my SSN or any other information. But I recently opened another Siam Commercial bank account and they actually interviewed me and asked numerous questions about my work here, family members etc. I don't remember if they asked me for my social security number or not. A Thai mutual fund that I have had for the last 12 years sent me a W-8 form ( I think it was a W-8 form) for the IRS and said it must be completed by me and then they would send it to the IRS along with all of my financial information regarding the fund to the IRS. I have 2 other Thai bank accounts that I have had for more than 15 years and they have yet to ask me for my social security number.

In my wife's village, where there are quite a few expats living, I was told that when an expat dies the wife takes the death certificate and marriage certificate to the bank and the bank then transfers everything to her name or account.Even without a will. Especially if one is well known or often seen in the bank. I don't recommend relying on this kind of procedure. I sent an email to Siam Commercial Bank asking if I needed a will for a joint bank account. They replied saying that, in the event if my death, my wife could keep using the account until there was no longer any money in it. But once the account was empty, she would have to open a new account. As for our mutual fund with Krungsri Asset Management, they said I would definitely need a will to transfer funds to a single account. I sent an email to Krungsri Bank asking if we would need a will for our joint accounts and they said yes.Our local bank manager then called us and asked us to come to the bank and discuss the procedure used to transfer funds in the event of one of our deaths. I talked to a lawyer in my wife's village, one recommended by a number of expats, and he said it is best to have a will but if the bank accounts are joint accounts, my wife or I would not have much difficulty in getting the account changed to a single account either of our names.,even without a will. He seemed to say that, especially because we have no children, a death certificate and marriage certificate would do the job. He was very generous with his time explaining the procedures that we would have to go through in the event that one of us dies. It did not try to convince us or pressure us to use his services. But, just to be on the safe side, we are going to have him do our will. He said he would keep a copy in his office and since he lives near by we could consult him if either of us ran into a problem. I don't think I need to have an English translation since I can read Thai. 2000 Baht for everything which sounds reasonable. One law firm I contacted in Pattaya wanted 15,000 Baht. One in Korat wanted 4,500 Baht.

Any comments?