jesimps

Of course the customer pays the VAT. The store owner hands over the cheque to the government, but all his goods are marked up to cover the cost to him. If there was no VAT the goods you buy would be 10% cheaper. You also pay vat on utilities ie electricity, water etc.

How about if I pay tax at 20% to my home country and don't work here or receive any benefits, but pay tax on most of my purchases? Still a selfish foreigner?

Now I'm getting on in years, even though I have several tattoos, I agree. But that's only my opinion. You missed IMO from your post.

The local immigration staff would probably struggle without their "bread and butter" money, also if I could afford it, I'd go the agent route myself. Anything rather than come under the stony glare of the dragon lady once a year, clutching my small rain forest of paperwork at the same time.

I've been with my UK bank for over 50 years, but when I went onto the site a few days ago, they made me fill in a big questionnaire regarding my pensions, who I paid tax to etc, before accessing my accounts. Bit daunting because it was early morning and I was still half asleep! I must admit that I was panicking slightly because I was about to do my monthly pension transfer. Anyway, they seemed happy with my answers because my transfer went ok and I haven't heard back from them. I did cock up my first attempt at logging in, so it may have had something to do with that.

The government is at fault for not preventing these dog incidents. Dogs rule in Thailand, there'll be many other incidents of people being harmed by them tomorrow.

The problem for a lot of people is that a lot of these places open up after a residential area has been established. Also, the loud bass-heavy rubbish they play is at such a volume that it doesn't have to be nearby to shake your walls and windows. There seems to be a bit of a trend these days to build pool villas which operate a karaoke every night for the tourists staying there. It's happened around our way and although they aren't on my doorstep, you can hear the boom of the bass speakers most nights in my house with all the doors and windows closed. Although this guy's actions were extreme, I can understand what caused him to kick off.

I changed from retirement based to marriage because I feel that the powers that be, when considering rule changes, might show a bit more leeway if one of their own were affected. Probably wouldn't make the slightest difference to them, but there you go. It is a pain in the backside though.

Your post in itself is generating more President Trump threads by referring to him as "Donald Chump". Obviously his supporters will have a go at you in his defence. Seems to me if you want less posts about him then keep shtum. I do however agree that there are far too many threads on US politics.

Every cloud has a silver lining.

I can understand the outrage. When you have enough idiots of your own, you don't want foreign idiots adding to it.

I dunno, I don't think it's over the top when you consider that you get a 2000 baht fine for being a day or two over on your 90 day report.

Yes but his savings account is probably a high interest one. He'd probably lose interest if he separated them. Also, why should he when nothing concrete has come from the Thais. Some of us can't even obtain a TIN from our local TRD.

Been puzzling me for a while now. I don't have either my works or government pension sent direct to here, they both go into my UK bank account and have been for many years. Therefore what I transfer here monthly comes out of those savings. My 2024 pension payments are only a small part of this. If savings are exempt, then my 2024 contribution is well diluted. Hope that makes sense.

I knew it all along, it's Trump's fault!