OJAS

Not to mention the considerable time wasted on your part until someone at the HMRC or DWP end can actually be bothered to pick up your call, during which time you are "serenaded" with irritating muzak interspersed with repetitive meaningless messages along the lines of "All our advisers are busy at the present time, but your call will be answered just as soon as it can be"! 😡

And, boy, his experience would be truly "real" were he to renew his passport here in Thailand, believe you me! Can vouch for this on the basis of my own encounter with the ghastly UK passport renewal procedures from Thailand at the back end of 2022!!

No such stamp is affixed to cancelled British passports. Instead cancellation is merely denoted by the top and bottom corners of the front cover being snipped off with a pair of scissors. Essential for @twozeds to ensure that this is done to his existing passport after renewal in the UK but before presentation with his new passport to IMM at BKK Arrivals upon his return.

@twozeds - plus the page containing your latest permission to stay stamp from your new one, of course (cannot now edit my previous posting).

Easier said than done in practice for us Brits, thanks to the cumbersomely bureaucratic passport renewal procedures which have been inflicted on us locally in their infinite wisdom by His Majesty's Passport Office (HMPO) back in the UK - and, which, as alluded to by the OP, require, among other things, a couple of physical trips to offices located in Bangkok or Chiang Mai (particularly awkward and time-consuming for those of us who don't live within a stone's throw of either of those cities), firstly, to submit paper applications in person and, secondly, several weeks later to collect our new passports once HMPO have seen fit to issue them. On the other hand, if the OP were to renew his passport while in the UK, he would be able to do so using HMPO's online facility - an option which is denied to those of us renewing from Thailand for some ridiculous reason!

Better to do this sooner rather than later IMHO. In addition to your old and new passports your local immigration office will probably require from you copies of (1) the photopages from both passports, and (2) the pages containing stamps/visas from your old one, together with the following form duly completed: https://www.immigration.go.th/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/22.Transfer-Stamp-to-New-Passport-Form.pdf

And also collaborates closely with His Majesty's Passport Office in making the passport renewal process for local British expats just as cumbersomely, bureaucratically and awkwardly difficult as is humanly possible. A "task" in which it excels itself supremely.

After your extension of stay application has been approved you are required to maintain a minimum 800k bank balance for a further 3 months. Thereafter you may let it dip to a minimum of 400k until 2 months before next year's extension of stay application is due, by which time it will need to have been upped to at least 800k again. @couchpotato - too much of a superhuman effort for you then, was it, to have taken a couple of minutes out of your extremely valuable time to provide this information? 🙄

In stark contrast to the VFS office handling UK passport renewals in a throwback to the 70's. Can't see all that many being prepared to suffer the rigours of the dreaded With-It Tower Passport Renewal Experience solely on those grounds - definitely not me at any rate!

This advice certainly doesn't match my experience of being able, in practice, to file a 90-day report online following each foreign trip (my office is Rayong). That said, your particular circumstances do appear to be rather exceptional, though.

In the meantime, lest we forget, we'll have the Chinese New Year nonsense to have to contend with over the next few days - which kicked off in my locality a few minutes ago (yes at 5:30 am!!) with lunatics letting off firecrackers. Didn't appreciate being aroused from my slumbers in this way.🤬

Unless these exceed 60,000 THB in a given tax year.

Unless @Happy happy is American, Australian or British, it might alternatively be possible for him to obtain an income confirmation statement from his home country embassy on a one-off basis for his next extension application.

Harry certainly didn't hang around in the UK for very long after seeing his dad. On that basis, the reality of the situation sounds rather more optimistic than your "prophet of doom and gloom" prediction, I think. https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/harry-charles-visit-uk-king-cancer-meghan-william-royals-b1137709.html

This might only be an issue after you've renewed your passport and you need to notify your bank of your new passport details. In my experience such notifications can, in the case of Bangkok Bank, only be performed at the branch where you hold your account - but your mileage may vary, of course, depending on (1) the particular bank official you deal with on this matter, and (2) more importantly, the side of the bed they got out of that morning.

I have only opted to pay tax through my tax code on my Civil Service pension. I make direct tax payments on my State Pension to HMRC, and have decided not to include these in my tax code instead (hence removing the need to file tax returns), even though I no longer have any income in addition to these 2 pensions following the sale of my UK property a couple of years ago. What was my main motivation for this decision were various reports on here of HMRC seeking to add insult to injury by taxing frozen pensions through tax codes on the basis of the latest triple-lock increases (non-existent in our case, of course). Nothing can IMHO beat the stress (not to mention considerable expense) of having to phone those buffoons in HMRC back in the UK each year in order to get the triple-lock element reversed, not even filing a tax return! That all said, your mileage may vary, of course!

Yep, the cumbersome legalisation process referred to by the OP is spelt out in all its resplendent glory in the following link: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5b173648e5274a190383bc14/Legalisation_info_June_2018.pdf What, when the cumbersomely bureaucratic procedures which have been inflicted on us over the past 10 years or so in the areas of passport renewal and proving that we are still in the land of the living for State Pension purposes - with the cessation of the Embassy's income confirmation service some years ago also thrown in for good measure - it would IMHO not be unreasonable to conclude that the British government as a whole is consciously determined to make our lives as expat retirees here in LOS just as difficult as they humanly can be - with the eager and willing support of its Thai counterpart, of course.

According to their website VFS do offer a walk-in service at a cost of between 1,560 & 3,400 THB. https://visa.vfsglobal.com/tha/en/gbr/hmpo

So do you really believe that advice provided by an immigration officer which might vary from day to day depending on which side of the bed they had got out of that particular morning is actually the very best thing since sliced bread when it comes to reliability?

The Bangkok Bank website now contains the following "helpful" information regarding the requirements for opening a new account at that particular "revered" financial institution: Required Documents For Thai nationals ID card or any government-issued photo ID card with 13-digit ID number For foreigners For more information, please contact any Bangkok Bank branch. https://www.bangkokbank.com/en/Personal/Save-And-Invest/Save/Savings-Account So, as in the case of immigration offices, our chances of success as foreigners would appear to be entirely dependent on (1) the particular branch we deal with, (2) the individual staff member within that branch we end up speaking to, and (3) most importantly, the side of the bed which said staff member had got out of that morning.

With the possible exception of the odd rogue one here & there, they probably all do.

You need to trot along to your immigration office clutching your old and new passports (+ copies of photopages from both & stamps/visas from the old one) and the following form duly completed: https://www.immigration.go.th/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/22.Transfer-Stamp-to-New-Passport-Form.pdf

On the subject of DTA's, the following disturbing comment you've recently made in the original thread now running to 255 pages would IMHO be worth repeating here: "Word reaches me from a friend who attended a Mazars briefing at a Embassy in Bangkok this week that Thailand is currently renegotiating several DTA's. allegedly."

This does, however, strike me as an issue of potential interest to those in receipt of UK company pensions in particular, the more so if these pensions are significant in financial terms and/or they are also in receipt of the UK State Pension*. As I understand the present position, HMRC would only allow taxation relief equal to the amount of tax paid (at lower rates in most cases) to the RD here. I strongly suspect that this could, in practice, mean UK company pensioners having to file tax returns with HMRC for the first time ever in most cases, as well as with the RD here. Which would mean them having to enlist the services of a commercial software supplier if filing to HMRC online since they are UK tax non-residents. What with the differing tax years (6/4/Y1 to 5/4/Y2 in the case of HMRC and 1/1/Y1 to 31/12/Y1 in the case of the RD), this could all turn out to be a bureaucratic nightmare in their case! * @billd766 - looks like you might come under this heading.

Are the BCCT planning to organise similar briefings in other parts of the country since Hua Hin is, I'm sure, not a particularly convenient place to get to for many? Nevertheless many thanks are, I think, due to the BCCT for seemingly stepping forward, once again, in support of expats on a topical issue of particular concern to us, just as they did a couple of years ago in the case of COVID vaccinations.