OJAS

Just as is the case back in our home countries if you haven't already noticed, with many instances of expats here having their bank accounts back home, usually of many years' standing, summarily closed with minimal notice, solely on IMHO totally irrelevant non-residential grounds. A particularly sore point for us Brits at the present time, but equally true of the USA and other Western countries, I strongly suspect.

Just be aware that your initial retirement extension will be dated from when you apply for it at Immigration rather than from when your current permission to stay expires. Subsequent annual extensions will, however, be dated from when the permission to stay granted under the preceding extension expires.

I'm sure that any thread on here this time 5 years ago suggesting that the American, Australian and British embassies were about to discontinue their income confirmation services would similarly have been dismissed as rubbish. But we all know what, in the event, happened just a few months later.

So does this mean that our mobiles are likely to start emitting deafening wailing sounds over which we have no control, like they did on a test basis in the UK last April? https://aseannow.com/topic/1292603-uk-emergency-alerts-service-test-23-april-2022/

Looks to me like Smarty/Three are joining the UK party (along with HM Government and banks) in making our lives here in LOS just as difficult and miserable as they humanly can be.....

Sadly the Paypal option is no longer available from Thailand for foreigners.????

Yep, in typical Yes Minister-speak debit cards will no doubt be provided by Wise "in the fullness of time and at the appropriate juncture".???? I strongly suspect that it's Thai banking regulations that are proving a major stumbling-block here.

Because the UK Government as a whole is out to make our lives in LOS just as difficult and miserable as they humanly can be, with the eager and willing assistance of its Thai counterpart.

Nothing to do with the law but everything to do with individual UK banks' terms and conditions, I'm afraid. Even though they are IMHO effectively acting as a cartel as regards the residency requirement, successive UK governments have shown no appetite for flexing their legislative muscles in order to force any change - most likely, I strongly suspect, because of the general indifferent (and even downright hostile) attitude shown towards expats generally (not just those based in LOS) back in Blighty.

The issues which you have highlighted could potentially arise in our dealings with not only the RD here in Thailand but also with the taxation authorities back in our home countries. For instance, we British expat retirees are, generally speaking, only required to file annual tax returns with HMRC if we are in receipt of non-pension sources of income such as rents on UK properties which we own. As I see things, though, all of us could be forced into filing such returns as a prerequisite to avoiding double taxation, with all which that would entail - for the first time ever in many cases, I strongly suspect.

IMHO we should all have our fingers firmly crossed that the RD's Director-General doesn't have in mind the various international double taxation agreements entered into by Thailand under this heading.......

In any event it wouldn't look too great presentationally, I would have thought, if a hiso aged 70, but not a loso aged 69, were exempted from paying income tax.

So how come that 76 of the 79 foreign embassies in Bangkok are still able to provide income confirmation services to their nationals, presumably in full compliance with Immigration Bureau requirements, then? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_diplomatic_missions_in_Thailand

What a pathetic response.

I have attached below a link to the current DTA between the UK and Thailand, from which it should be apparent that it is not confined to pensions:- https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a80bddc40f0b623026953eb/uk-thailand-dtc180281_-_in_force.pdf In particular income from your UK property rental is covered by Article 7, as will be the capital gain from its possible eventual sale by Article 14(1). Pensions are dealt with in Article 19(2), but not all pensions are covered by the DTA: only those relating to public sector occupational pension schemes (Civil Service, local authority, police, military, NHS, etc). Private sector schemes are not covered - as is not, more crucially in the case of most of us, the UK State Pension, for which I have calculated that I would be theoretically liable to an annual tax payment to the Thai RD on my perpetually frozen pension of around 7,000 THB or 160 GBP. Much good would such a "contribution" on my part do to alleviating the Thai national debt! What I personally find extremely worrying in all this, though, is that, once it dawns on those numbskulls in the Thai Revenue Department that the amounts they'll be able to screw us expats for by way of tax are likely to be severely constrained by the terms of the DTA's entered into with not only the UK but also other Western countries, their reaction would simply be to rip up these DTA's unilaterally. I would therefore like to think that the Western diplomatic corps as a whole in Bangkok would be sufficiently geared up to ensure that swift and appropriate international retaliatory action was targetted at those responsible in the RD and more widely the Thai government as a whole, should such unacceptably outrageous actions ever come to pass.

Long may that happy state of affairs continue! I earnestly hope for your sake, then, that it isn't the dreaded Bangkok Bank Bualuang m-Banking app! Accessing it has proved a hit-and-miss affair (with increasing emphasis on "miss") in my experience. After placing my finger on the screen icon and going through security checks, 1 of 3 things, then tends to happen:- (1) Nothing at all. (2) A dark blue screen with the Bangkok Bank logo pops up and then lingers around for several seconds before disappearing. (3) Even worse the dreaded black screen of death appears. So frustrated have I become at having this happen whenever I attempt to make a scanned payment (meaning that I then have no choice other than to make the necessary payment by cash instead), that I have now jacked this worse-than-useless piece of excrement by binning the app in disgust. In future I intend to rely on the far superior and user-friendlier Bualuang i-Banking facility for my modest electronic banking needs instead. In case some IT geek on here is minded to tell me that there's absolutely nothing wrong with the Bualuang m-Banking app and that it's all down to my smartphone, I should say that I've never experienced similar problems with other apps - most certainly not with Wise's app, for instance, which I do find particularly useful in scheduling transfers (although Wise do appear to have messed about with it according to the latest version I installed earlier today). Based on my experience, you'd better brace yourself for an almighty leap from the frying pan into the fire if you're minded to go down the app route with Bangkok Bank (if you haven't already made the jump), I think!

Would not surprise me in the slightest if quite a few of us were driven to the bottle in any event by what might be in prospect!

More likely, I fear and suspect, that, if we were unable to file tax returns in the Thai language ourselves (with doubtless particular regard to specific requirements for all dates to be expressed strictly in the B.E. calendar format and all numerals in the Thai (rather than Western/Arabic) numbering format, the RD would be expecting us to line the pockets of accountants who were well versed in local linguistics at considerable expense to us in all certainty.

Yep, fun and games galore could be in prospect for us Brits in receipt of that pittance called the UK State Pension - with both the RD here in Thailand and HMRC back home.

I sincerely hope you're right, John. When I delve even more into the potential situation regarding the State Pension for us Brits, matters get even more absurd. To avoid being taxed twice it would appear that we shall need to complete a complex 6-page form: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1119722/Double_Taxation_Treaty_Relief_Form_DT-Individual.pdf And no doubt the RD will insist on a certified Thai translation of the bit they'll need to complete, before doing the necessary in Thai, of course. As a result, HMRC back in the UK (the British IRS) will probably then require a certified English translation of what the RD have said. When taken with employing accountants to sort this bureaucratic mess out, we could be talking about a total cost which would be way in excess of the 7,000 THB for which, by my reckoning, I would personally be liable to double taxation!

Ha-ha! Consistent with the overall track record on dual pricing for access to national parks, etc here in LOS, it would not surprise me in the slightest if we were, in fact, taxed at a special foreigner rate which was 10 times greater than that levied on the locals!

Please click on the following link to the RD website which, I think, provides the info you're after: https://www.rd.go.th/fileadmin/user_upload/AEC/AseanTax-Thailand.pdf

I have just conducted a rough and ready calculation of the tax which would, in theory, be due to the RD in respect of my UK State Pension which has been frozen ever since I claimed it in 2015. This reveals that I would be capable of swelling their coffers by a truly magnificent 7,000 THB or thereabouts per annum! I believe that the words sledgehammer, nut and crack would spring to mind, therefore, in the event of the RD still deciding to go after me and fellow UK State Pensioners with zeal and gusto for what will turn out in practice to be paltry tax payments. But this being Thailand, of course..................

Indeed there is:- https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/507424/uk-thailand-dtc180281_-_in_force.pdf UK property rental income is covered by Article 7, as are public sector occupational pensions (Civil Service, police, military, NHS, local government, teachers, etc) by Article 19(2)(a). On the other hand, private sector occupational pensions are not covered, so will almost certainly be affected by this measure. And those of us in receipt of the State Pension, which is not covered either, will also, in theory, be affected. As I see things, this could mean us State Pensioners having to file annual tax returns with both HMRC (even if we haven't needed to do this previously) and the Thai RD. But good luck to the RD if they really seriously believe that they will be able to raise significant amounts to swell Thai exchequer coffers through taxation on our perpetually frozen State Pensions! Apologies if I'm repeating anything which has already been stated in the intervening 40 pages of this thread!

Only true in respect of the non-O visa conversion part of the process (which I assume is how the OP is about to obtain his non-O visa). For his subsequent annual extension of stay application for marriage, the OP will need to have seasoned in his bank account a minimum of 400k for at least 2 months, as correctly stated by @DrJack54.