GabbaGabbaHey

4 hours ago, samran said:

Not an expert on tax but I think the TV consensus is they aren’t taxable.

 

Gabbas advice is sound. I do taxes in three jurisdictions. A massive pain so good advice is necessary. 

Maybe I replied quickly as my answer was in the context of not yet being naturalized yet and in this case the tax agreement between the two countries still make sense. As a matter of fact, once you get Thai citizenship you're technically not supposed to have any other nationality so the tax agreement should no longer apply. Which means, I guess, you're taxed as a Thai national getting foreign income. On this point, I'm not sure how naturalized citizens who retain their former nationality will handle the tax declaration to the Revenue department for their foreign income, as some of the submitted documents must obviously contain elements that indicate they retain the former nationality.

35 minutes ago, samran said:

You should be paying tax on it if it is transferred into Thailand in the same year it is earned by you (regardless of nationality).

 

If it is transferred into Thailand the following year, it is tax free. For instance, earn 1million dollars on December 31 and transfer it into Thailand the same day, it is taxable. Transfer it in 1 Jan, it is tax free.

 

http://www.rd.go.th/publish/552.0.html

 

 

This is true in the general case only, which means if your country has no tax agreement with Thailand. If it has an agreement, you should study it. For instance the one that would apply to me says differently and any income from my original country would be added to my taxable income in Thailand on the same tax year.

4 hours ago, red horse said:

May I know how long time between royal gazette to receiveing time of nationalty certificates

I think it's just few weeks, perhaps one month.

31 minutes ago, Neeranam said:

And the NIA was one month after your application to SB?

That's correct, however my SB application/interview day happened 4-5 months after my first visit to SB. For this I consider myself to be already 7-8 months into the process.
 

28 minutes ago, Neeranam said:

How long after the NIA interview would this be?

My guess is +3 to +6 months, following what recent applicants have reported, but I believe they had a very good application and no major rework request on top.

I'll let you know when I see this happening for myself, I'm currently close to +3 months after NIA. 

7 hours ago, Neeranam said:

My current plan is to leave my work in March, but I have another job lined up.

I expect there will be a gap in the WP, but no period of unemployment. Do you think this could cause a problem? Any suggestions?

If I were you, by default I'd try to stay on my current job as much as possible, at least until SB sends the application to the MOI. The reason is because before that time, documents verifications are done during the "120 days period", and let's say if the Ministry of Labour replies that your employment situation doesn't match SB details, you'll probably be in trouble. I must admit have no clue if MOI runs its own verification process of the documents passed by SB (Arkady do you know that?) or it's the sole role of SB and MOI would just process the application? Because if MOI were to check documents, you'd be in trouble as well for a mismatch. Perhaps it would be wise to ask SB on this potential situation ("what happens if I change my job during the process"?) I'm sure they will be helpful and they may even have some recommendations for you.

2 minutes ago, Neeranam said:

But I don't need the WP after the NIA interview, maybe, which could be before March?

My understanding is that you need to report any change in your situation until SB sends your data to MOI, which usually happens 3+ months after the NIA interview. But on MOI interview day your WP will be requested so you should be employed at that time. Between these, I don’t know. 

17 hours ago, Neeranam said:

If I make the application on Dec 18, is there a good chance that I could get the MOI interview before March? What would be the worst case scenario - April?

Before March... 2019 perhaps, but not even guaranteed considering recent applicants had a waiting time of 15-18 months from the starting point to the MOI interview.

18 minutes ago, red horse said:

May I know the list of royal gazette

http://www.ratchakitcha.soc.go.th/DATA/PDF/2560/E/284/1.PDF

11 minutes ago, BaanBKK said:

Correct, application for citizenship was filed with SB on the second working day of January 2016 (I had to get some tax issues in order so my 2015 taxes were filed on the first working day of that month). From then until today it would be less than 2 years, I guess.

This means your NIA interview was around September 2016 (9 months after applying at SB), can you confirm this? Sorry to ask, but this is very useful to understand the current trend -although I know each applicant has a specific experience of the process-. Being few months after my NIA interview, it will give me -and other recent applicants- a clue of a potential waiting time to MOI interview.

13 minutes ago, BaanBKK said:

The duration between NIA interview and MOI interview was about 8 weeks. MOI interview was last May. His Majesty endorsed my petition in June and took the oath then. RTG publication yesterday.

Wow. 8 weeks only? Or is it 8 months? Does it mean your total waiting time since your SB application has been less than two years?

5 minutes ago, BaanBKK said:

I just saw the RTG, my name was published. I'm Thai. My sincere thanks to Arkady and the others on this thread who contribute such useful insight. I must say I feel truly relieved, I know I still have some things to deal with as far as the ID, but it is now official and that feels great.

Congratulations! 

May I ask how many months were there between your NIA and MOI interviews? and how many months after the MOI interview was your name published to the RTG?

Just now, greenchair said:

How many years ago was that? 

two months ago.

On this topic of choosing a Thai name and surname, the last bullet of my SB application form was

๒๒. เมื่อได้ยื่นคาขอนี้แล้ว ข้าพเจ้าจะดาเนินการขอเปลี่ยนชื่อและชื่อสกุลของข้าพเจ้า และบุตร ให้เป็นภาษาไทย

During the SB interview day, I got the letter to bring to my district which contained the attached sentence.

25 minutes ago, greenchair said:

Well, I didn't choose a Thai name and nobody told me to either. 

Greenchair, as I understand, this is because women who adopt their husband's Thai nationality -which must be your case- have less requirements than male applicants (No Thai name to chose, no renunciation of former nationality, no singing, no oath perhaps...). Vibe is likely to be a male applicant, then he has this mandatory step to choose a Thai name, without any need to use it. End of story, I think.

1 hour ago, VIBE said:

I submitted my application for Thai citizenship last week, and this week was told by the RTP that I need to go to the local Amphur office and "reserve" my new Thai name.  I don't understand this, as how can I just get a new Thai name?  What would happen to all the documents I have for Thailand in my English name?  I thought, one would only need their English name translated to Thai.

This has been part of the requirement for very long time, as Arkady explained many pages ago -if you want to get all details you should read earlier posts-, in early ages naturalized people had to switch to use a Thai name. Nowadays it's a formality but it remains in the process (you need to choose one Thai name, but no obligation to use it, although if you wished to switch to a completely new identity you could decide to use it). BTW there's a website that let you check the name availability (it must be a new family name never used).

http://www.khonthai.com/online/WCHECKLNAME/

And I can truly say that when I got the letters with my Thai firstname and lastname, after just few months in the process, I already felt half naturalized :-)

Out of curiosity, do PR holders keep their 8xxx ID number after getting naturalized?

1 minute ago, GarryP said:

I visited the local Revenue Office to change my tax ID number to correspond with my ID Card, but after the officers put their heads together to discuss it and consulted with the chief, the answer was that it is not possible to do so and that I should continue using my then current tax ID number. I knew this was rubbish so when I had to submit my next tax return, I simply used my ID Card number to re-register online and submitted using that (e-filing). No problem at all for the past couple of years or so and I still got my tax refunds without any trouble. 

 

My employer started using my ID Card number as soon as I received it. 

If I understand well, people who have the 8 number after PR will keep the same number after being naturalized?

I was less lucky than you after I registered my PR 8xxx ID in the tax revenue system, I was no longer able to submit it online through e-revenue, maybe that's why they told you not to do that. They looked at my case and were not able to solve my problem, even when I went to the head office. Which means I'm back to manual for 4 years already. But haven't double-checked since then.

13 minutes ago, qualtrough said:

The one thing that worries me is the donation requirement. How much weight does that get in the assessment? If they see it was made only a few months before the application does that mean they won't consider it, or does it just mean a point deduction? This is my one area of concern at the moment.

 

I would also like to recommend that if you need anything translated you have it done at the MFA. I had one doc translated elsewhere and the rest at the MFA. They sent the other one back twice. First because of really nit-picking requirements, like the close needed to say 'With kind regards' instead of 'With sincere regards' (equivalent in Thai) and a few similar things. Second time was because they wanted to see the original doc again.

 

This could all have been avoided had I had them translate that doc as well. Location is right at the top of the escalator to the second floor. Apologies if this has been dealt with here before.

The proof of charity donations (not less than 5,000 baht) is a requirement and has nothing to do with the points calculation. It clearly says "the money must have been donated long time ago and not just in time to support the application". I imagine SB will tell you what to do in that case, like how long you need to wait after your latest donation before you can apply.

For the other point, I believe there is no 100% perfect application and therefore no point trying to guess what is a perfect approach for each requirement. You mention the need to use MFA translation offices... I have used none and all my translations were accepted so far (although I must admit, this is likely because they were certified by my embassy). On the other hand, I was requested a bunch of things that others applicants were probably not bothered with...

19 minutes ago, skyaslimit said:

Applying as a PR although having a Thai family, do I still need a criminal clearance certificate from my embassy? (I have submitted one when applied for the PR)

Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app
 

Normally yes, since I'm in that exact category and I have been asked for it about two months ago (Note you don't need to prepare in advance, the request will be -or not- in the set of letters you get on your interview day).

41 minutes ago, thunder18 said:

I have no plans to use foreign passport in Thailand once I obtain Thai citizenship (it is in progress at the moment). My question was about closing the existing visa in foreign passport and use only Thai ID while in Thailand. I simply want to close the visa without collecting any "strange" stamps on my foreign passport.

Will the scenario (described in my previous post) work?

 

 

You could get the strange stamp, renew your foreign passport and have the previous one lost. No?

36 minutes ago, MrPatrickThai said:

Can you confirm - the declaration of intent to renounce British/US etc citizenship is in Thai?

No, but the letter to the embassy asking for it is.

9 hours ago, Arkady said:

 

What does the letter to embassies look like these days?  When I applied I was told to get the declaration of intent without any letter to the embassy and was unsuccessful at my first attempt because the local officer refused to do it.  When I was completing the application process with SB they gave me a copy of a letter they had sent to the embassy.  It was all in Thai and was a very lengthy and tedious piece of offialese which included, among other things, the entire Nationality Act.  Somewhere embedded in the text was a paragraph about the declaration of intent and that they would be hearing from them again to confirm that nationality has been granted. I am sure that a local consular officer glazed over after scanning the first few paras and it was rapidly dropped in the circular filing basket, as, no doubt, was the confirmation letter five years later.   Have they at least managed to translate the letter into English yet?

 

 

Both letters were in Thai language, one single page for each. There was no extensive information of the nationality act in it, but a couple of paragraphs who specified "according to the citizenship law number...".

The first letter was asking for 

- Certification that my passport is genuine (SB added a copy of it they had stamped with Thai indications - a format which would be hard to reuse by any embassy I guess, mine could not)
- Certification of no criminal offense in my country
The second letter was asking the embassy to produce a certificate of my intention to renounce my original nationality once I would be granted Thai nationality.

The embassy employee just opened the letters, passed it to someone who could read Thai to get a general idea of the subject (probably "naturalization"), and told me they would proceed exactly as they did with the guy preceding me with similar letters: I left with a certified true copy of my passport and a guideline to request my no criminal offense certificate online -as one can do in my country- which document I had translated and legalized later on.

Eventually I was handed back the letters at the embassy since they told me they would do nothing with them.
 

10 hours ago, MrPatrickThai said:

I haven't been asked for this document for the application process.

This is probably because you didn't do the interview day yet (at that time, you'll receive letters and two of them are for your embassy).

From what I see, there has been one this month for ladies.

http://www.ratchakitcha.soc.go.th/DATA/PDF/2560/D/090/2.PDF