OJAS

Link confirming this assertion, please.

Nothing among all the Euro-waffle contained in the OP that I can see, which states clearly and unambiguously precisely on which specific grounds those Brussels-based charlatans consider that the UK has not complied FULLY (in block capitals for emphasis) with said provisions.

Basically a rant borne out of sheer frustration! I've now made all my remittances to Thailand in the 2024 tax year and calculated the assessable income component (consisting solely of the UK State Pension) based on the 2023 TEDA's. All I need now are details of the 2024 TEDA's to tweak the figuring in my spreadsheet if necessary - plus, of course, the 2024 PND91. I contrast the current uncertainty about TEDA's here with Rachel Reeves' guarantee in her budget statement on 30 October that the existing UK personal tax-free allowance would remain unchanged at £12,570 p.a. until the UK tax year ending on 5 April 2028!

So in other words we won't know for certain what TEDA's will apply for 2024 until such time as the TRD see fit to issue their new forms. The extremely leisurely attitude which they seem to be taking to doing this is IMHO a bloody disgrace. Contrast this with the likely enthusiam with which they will no doubt be tackling the task of gleefully dishing out 2,000 THB fines left, right and centre from 1 April 2025 sharp for the late submission of tax returns and the payment of any tax due! 😡

Another statement in this article caught my eye: "Mr Pichai also proposed lowering the personal income tax from the current maximum of 35%, mirroring global trends aimed at attracting skilled workers." This suggests to me that he has got his beady eye on all existing TEDA's. How else would he propose making up the shortfall resulting from any reduction in the 35% maximum rate - particularly given the Chulalongkorn economist's assertion that "the government's fiscal burdens have significantly increased"? @chiang mai - incidentally, can the TRD simply vary any TEDA off their own bat? Or would this first necessitate some formal process resulting in, say, publication of revised rates in the Royal Gazette?

One important thing you'll need to bear in mind, though, regardless of whether or not you decide to dispose of your property, is that you'll almost certainly need to declare any rental income and/or capital gain arising from its sale, which is subsequently remitted to Thailand, as assessable income in tax returns which you'll have to file with the Thai Revenue Department (TRD), in addition to what you'll have to include in returns filed with HMRC. A good starting point for you on this whole issue IMHO would be the guide set out on the first page of the following thread on the Banking forum: https://aseannow.com/topic/1324294-introduction-to-personal-income-tax-in-thailand

The fact that the TRD have produced a leaflet in English* but not a corresponding one in Thai (as far as I can tell) might indicate that foreigners, rather than locals, would more likely find themselves in the TRD crosshairs should they decide to do any chasing up (not a given in the short term at least, though, I think). * https://www.rd.go.th/fileadmin/user_upload/lorkhor/newspr/2024/FOREIGNERS_PAY_TAX2024.pdf

@chiang mai - can you recall when TRD issued the 2023 versions of these forms? Before or after mid-Dec 2023?

Disagree with the statement that Bangkok Bank mall branches provide full banking services. Their branch in my local Big C mall flatly refused to issue me with a new passbook a few years ago, and told me to obtain one from the main branch where I had opened my account.

If I recall correctly your 3 pensions are military (non-assessable), company and State (both assessable). Would be most interested to hear in due course how your office treats the last 2 for taxation purposes!

Out of curiosity, did your tax office, in the circumstances, bother issuing you with a bit of paper 6cm x 8cm approx with your TIN, as mine did when I obtained my TIN a few months ago (I don't have a pink card)?

Plus your home country bank and their agency bank in Thailand will have deducted their own charges from the amount which ends up in your Thai account.

But if you are currently on overstay, do you seriously think that your local immigration will gladly process a 90-day retirement non-O visa conversion for you with no questions asked? Far more likely that you would find yourself on a one-way trip to the IDC and subsequent deportation from Thailand, I would have thought!

Not through a 90-day conversion at his local office, though - at least not officially. The Immigration Bureau guidance states "If you have overstayed, you are not allowed to submit an application for this type of visa": https://www.immigration.go.th/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/9.FOR-RETIREMENT-PURPOSES-50-YEARS-OLD-NON-O.pdf

In any event it's not clear to me what benefit @merijn would derive from obtaining a legalised version of a P60 certificate - quite apart from the fact that the procedures he would need to comply with in order to achieve this end would IMHO be tantamount to using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. The amount of tax he pays to HMRC on his UK-generated income has little bearing on whether said income is deemed assessable in the TRD context. And, rather than leaving things until after obtaining a TIN, he would IMHO be far better off determining sooner rather than later whether he would be liable to tax here in Thailand by reference to the UK/Thailand DTA*. In short, except in the case of income earned before 1 January 2024 regardless of its source, the chances are that he would be, unless he is in receipt of a UK government occupational pension (Civil Service, local authority, military, police, NHS, etc). * https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a80bddc40f0b623026953eb/uk-thailand-dtc180281_-_in_force.pdf

Legalisation of any official UK document, such as the P60 tax form to which @merijnrefers, for use in Thailand is not, unfortunately, a mere matter of someone at the British Embassy in Bangkok simply plonking a stamp on said document. Instead, it involves a cumbersomely bureacratic and time-consuming process as spelt out in considerable detail in the following link: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/documents-for-british-people-abroad#getting-uk-documents-legalised-and-certified In practice this essentially means him having to comply with these 3 steps sequentially by getting his P60 form: (1) legalised by the FCDO's Legalisation Office in the UK; then (2) stamped by the Royal Thai Embassy in London; and finally (3) approved by the Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Bangkok.

As opposed to 2,000 THB WITH a receipt??

Plus how much of his, their and your time?

Is your debit-card-less account also without internet/app access? I can only make cash withdrawals from my dedicated 800k account (should I ever be minded to do so) in person at a branch.

IMHO the blame lies more with the banking "geniuses" who were responsible for designing lousy apps which are inherently cumbersome, awkward and slow to use, rather than with those who are striving to make the best of an extremely bad job in using them. About a year ago I had a brief flirtation with the dreaded Bangkok Bank app, but dumped it after it started playing me up big time whenever I attempted to use it for making scanned QR payments at Big C, Makro, etc. As a result, cash is also king for me nowadays here in LOS. A great pity that Contactless has not caught on here in the way it has back in my home country (UK) as well as in Australia, presumably. However, I understand that the maximum amount for Contactless payments without the need for passcodes, etc is a ridiculously low 1,500 THB in LOS, when compared to around 4,300 THB (£100) in the UK, so that may have something to do with it.

Is there not a risk of being bumped off a flight without a seat reservation, though, if it is over-booked (which you may only find out about at check-in)? Or are Emirates flights never over-booked?

From the BBC news article referred to in the OP: "In 2019, the Conservative government estimated it would cost £600m to fully restore pensions to the level they would have been if they had not been frozen." An amount which IMHO is small beer when compared to the alleged £22bn black hole in the UK's public finances which Rachel Reeves was striving to plug in the recent Budget!

Scaremongering par excellence IMHO.

As have I. In any event, I would prefer not to have to run the risk of accidentally defacing my passport when removing stapled receipts from it every 90 days or so.

I seriously wonder whether the ability to watch a movie like a normal human being might prove a struggle too far for a number of AN posters! 😆