OJAS

https://aseannow.com/topic/1340999-uk-visa-application-centre-in-bangkok-temporarily-closed/ If this outfit are still peddling grossly out-of-date info on their website as regards UK visa applications, then how can they possibly be trusted to get things right when it comes to handling UK passport renewals on our behalf? Certainly doesn't look particularly good IMHO. Key Visa strike me as a better option personally: https://www.keyvisathailand.com/

Moderator's notice: This link is out of date. Please disregard. Any truth in the statement contained in the following link? https://thaivisa-express.com/vfs-uk-visa-application-centre-in-bangkok-temporarily-closed/ Certainly no mention of any temporary closure on VFS's own website, as far as I can tell. https://visa.vfsglobal.com/tha/en/gbr

Not sure that this would be a particularly good idea IMHO. While the GOV.UK website is, indeed, currently stating a 4-week turnaround time from Thailand, it would only need those incompetent clowns at HMPO to suddenly throw another big wobbly like they did a few years ago, which could result in a drastic increase in this timescale overnight. https://thaivisa-express.com/vfs-uk-visa-application-centre-in-bangkok-temporarily-closed/ We Brits can but dream of a similarly smooth passport renewal process in our case, which doesn't necessitate an extra 5,000 THB being shelled out for the use of an agent!😴

Reads to me like some training guide for new officers at CW (assuming, of course, that they are fluent in English which is by no means a given in my experience of immigration officers generally)!

All the more so given that online is the only way in which our Irish cousins, for instance, can renew their passports from Thailand! https://www.ireland.ie/en/thailand/bangkok/passports/how-to-apply-for-a-passports/

So why aren't the same security measures in place for UK passports processed from Malaysia, the Philippines and everywhere else on this great planet of ours where online renewal is possible? No need for a second physical trip to a distant passport office to pick up your replacement passport; instead this is couriered to you direct! So why can't HMPO at least cut out the VFS middle man and send replacement passports by courier direct to Thailand-based applicants? That was certainly the case when I renewed my passport in 2013 via Hong Kong!

IMHO the responsibility for the whole bloody shambles that is the UK passport renewal process from Thailand lies fairly and squarely with those clowns known as His Majesty's Passport Office (HMPO) back in the UK. VFS are merely their local agents and are probably slavishly following strict orders in relation to the perfectly reasonable and valid points which you have raised. There is already in existence an online facility for handling the whole passport renewal process, which HMPO are encouraging the use of from practically everywhere on this great planet of ours (including Malaysia and the Philippines in this part of the world), but with the notable exception of Thailand for some ridiculous reason! The one thing which agents seem unable (or unwilling) to provide any assistance with, though, is in obtaining fresh paper mugshots which comply fully with HMPO's ultra-fussy requirements, particularly as regards acceptable background colours. Easier said than done to accomplish yourself if you live in the boonies!

So within the catchment area of which immigration office is your place located? Those who have personal experience of seeking retirement extensions at that particular office may be able to provide you and your parents with advice on specific issues relating to that office.

Provided that they - and only they - could access it, of course. Otherwise the risk would be that the BS nonsense they keep spouting on here could mistakenly be construed by some who might still come to the whole topic cold as representing any semblance of accuracy!

And this will presumably also be the first time we'll hear of any changes to allowances and exemptions for the 2024 Thai tax year. Whereas in the UK's case, for example, there will probably be several months' notice given of any changes to allowances and exemptions effective from the start of the next UK tax year on 6 April 2025 in Rachel Reeves' budget statement on 30 October.

In other words, transfers in support of future retirement extension applications based on 65k THB minimum monthly income, correct? Assuming an affirmative answer to my previous question this could be problematical for you in proving the foreign origin of the aforementioned transfers. This is because Krung Thai aren't one of Wise's partner banks in Thailand, meaning that transfers would be routed initially to either Bangkok Bank or Kasikorn (who are Wise's Thai partner banks these days) and then onwards to your Krung Thai account with some internal transaction coding which would not provide any proof of their foreign origin to Immigration's satisfaction. It may be that your local immigration office would accept the transfer receipts provided by Wise as sufficient proof of their foreign origin, but, if they don't, then I think that your only option would be to obtain credit advice notes from whichever of Bangkok Bank or Kasikorn acted as Wise's Thai partners in particular cases. This might entail a lot of hassle for you each month if (as I gather to be the case) you live out in the sticks since I understand that only major Bangkok Bank and Kasikorn branches in the major urban centres issue credit advice notes. IMHO, therefore, you would be strongly advised to stick with monthly transfers to your Bangkok Bank account. I assume that these receive the coveted FTT / International Transfer codings which, I take it, have hitherto avoided the need for you to go chasing around for fresh credit advice notes each month.

Plus presumably a completed TM8 form?

How much might you receive from Bitcoin for being their PR consultant?

Unfortunately for us Brits, the GBP's cause has not been helped by Andrew Bailey at the Bank of England blabbing his big mouth off on the subject of interest rates yesterday ☹️ https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2lp5l9dpro

As far as I am concerned, if we choose to submit our returns in paper form on form PND90 or PND91 as appropriate, then our local area revenue offices are duty-bound to accept them in this form, and they therefore should not IMHO be regarded as benevolently bestowing any special favours on us as a result. If, for instance, my local office were to refuse to accept my completed paper PND91 (my sole source of assessable income being the UK State Pension which, in any event, should be fully covered by existing allowances and exemptions) in the first 3 months of 2025, then it would be my intention to mail it by EMS to TRD's Bangkok HQ under cover of a suitable explanatory letter written in English.

@xylophone - in case it's still of any use to you, below is a link to the highly detailed and complex form that needs to be completed in the Thai language I referred to previously: https://www.rd.go.th/fileadmin/tax_pdf/request/lp10.1_110355.pdf

Know the feeling! I have included no fewer than 4 idiots in an Ignore list which I have created specially for them.

Sorry, xylo, missed out on answering this query until now. Unless you've already been to your Area Revenue Office for a TIN, I suggest that you ask your Thai daughter to call them on this point. I certainly wasn't required to provide any proof of address at my Area Revenue Office, but, as in the case of Immigration, what goes at one particular office may not necessarily fly at another, I strongly suspect!

Have they also re-introduced the requirement for international insurers to sign a certificate confirming compliance with some obscure Thai cabinet resolution as in the case of the original 400k/40k version, thus largely restricting policies deemed acceptable to rip-off ones issued by TGIA members in practice?

As does the super-inflated ego of Ms Chayawadee's boss, the BOT Governor, who seems overwhelmed at the present time by an uncontrollable urge to afford the very highest of tip-top priorities to bragging to his Western counterparts in particular just how much more successful he is than they are in maintaining the value of the currency for which he is responsible just as high as is humanly possible! 🤑

Like this lot, perhaps??

Not to mention foreigners who commit the apparently far more serious crime of missing a 90-day report!

If the source was assessable then taxable, but if non-assessable then not taxable, I would have thought. So would depend on the individual financial circumstances of those intending to make deposits.

And you, for your part, have also expressed your opinion, which is tantamount to scaremongering par excellence IMHO. Have you actually heard of any instances where retirees were rapped over their knuckles (or worse) for failing to report back to their immigration office exactly 3 months to the nearest nanosecond after lodging their latest retirement extension application if using the 800k bank balance method? I most certainly have not!

The OP doesn't appear to have an existing account with NatWest - and the likelihood of him being able to open a new one from Thailand is zero!