bkk_mike

Just going to highlight that double taxation agreements technically don't mean that you might not have to pay tax in both countries. (unless the DTA says that particular type of income is only taxed in one jurisdiction). It generally says where you pay the tax first, and the tax paid in the first country can offset the tax due in the second country. It's only where the first country is the only country collecting taxes, or where the first country's tax is higher than the second country's tax - that you wouldn't have to pay anything to the second country. The nastiness generally comes with something that's tax exempt in one country, but not tax exempt in the other. As then you're paying tax on something where you didn't expect to pay tax on it.

On your phone, go to the settings in the play store app, and you should find a country setting. Apparently you can only change this once a year, and to change it you often have to do something like add a local credit card to your Google wallet (you can remove it again afterwards if you want). In Hong Kong, I chose to link it to my Octopus app as that option was there. You do this from one of the links under the country setting in the app. Once your play store has the right country setting, you should then be able to install local apps (that are paranoid and check the country setting). P.S. I had already done things like change my home address on my Google account to my Hong Kong address, so maybe you also need to do that - Unsure... P.P.S. If you don't want to change the country of your Gmail account, open a new Gmail account and use it on another phone, and make this Gmail account a Thailand one. Then you keep one SIM in each phone.

Not the law. At least not for over 25 years. I think you're misremembering when Thai females who married a foreigner and then were granted another nationality, lost their Thai nationality. (It was only women, not men, that this happened to.) They tried to get Tiger Woods to apply for Thai nationality, and he refused because of how his mother had been forced to lose her nationality. So, I believe it was the 1997 constitution, got rid of that rule and Thais have had no problems with dual nationality since then. It didn't hurt that you also had one of King Bhumibol's daughters, literally a princess in the Thai royal family who married an American and whose kids had dual nationality.

I'm British and complain about British airways all the time. Because their premium economy seats are the same as economy on decent carriers, and their economy seats are designed to make people pay the extra for premium economy.

I assume you didn't read where the flight was going... Or realise that, as a Taiwanese airline, EVA is very restricted on the flights it can make into China. The reason they stop in Bangkok on the flight from London is because, as a Taiwanese airline, they're not even allowed to fly over Chinese airspace (except on flights from Taiwan to China).

As someone who's worked in Japan, it's actually significantly easier to get a regular work visa for Japan (without being an internal company transfer) than it is to get one for the US. - mainly because the US visa system is dysfunctional. For instance, you need to apply at the right time of year to get an H1B visa before the whole year's allocation is issued... Very useful when you're looking for a job - being told "we can't employ you now, but we can employ you in 6 months time when the visas are available again".

This one, the US government wouldn't have a leg to stand on. Because, in the UK there is a system called ISAs, that are a lot like a Roth IRA. You put money into them out of taxed income (restrictions on how much you can put in each year) and the gain and income (like dividends) is exempt from UK tax. But Americans in the UK get taxed on them by the US government at a punitive rate of about 43% (on the gain) if I remember correctly. If the rest of your income is taxed in the US, make sure that any amount taken from your Roth IRA is below the tax free allowance in Thailand if you don't want it to be taxed. (Technically the gain on the amount, but you'd have to have the data to back up how much is gain versus original capital).

He's just used to being totally shafted by the IRS because he's American. After all, most other countries that you don't live in don't require you to still file tax returns. But they're not going to break their double taxation agreement, although maybe check when it's due to expire. His social security is definitely exempt in Thailand. On the rest, it's a matter of checking the DTA and maybe he should be paying tax in Thailand and NOT in the US on it. Any tax paid in Thailand can be deducted from tax payable in the US on the same income - or vice versa. It's often a question of who gets to tax it first. That's why double taxation agreements exist...

They only signed the 1949 one, so even licences in English need an IDP. But, ironically, you can use the later, 3 year IDP.

Admittedly, as I know the pension would be frozen if we lived in Thailand full-time, our plan is to winter in Thailand, and stay in the UK in the summers,,, Means we can fly in October/March when flights are cheap, and has the added side-benefit of keeping us from having to deal with Thai tax returns. But I'm not dependent on the UK state pension. It's just icing on the cake.

Would it be feasible to move to the Philippines. Similar climate, but with the pension increases.

Probably because inflation has risen quite a lot, so people are feeling the pinch of not getting the inflation adjustment more.

It used to be all foreign countries. Then they signed reciprocal agreements with a few countries (i.e. you uprate the pensions of your pensioners living here, we'll upgrade the pensions of our pensioners living there...) But the UK stopped signing reciprocal agreements in 1981 - so that's quite easy to blame on Thatcher. The introduction of the Single market in 1992 forced the UK to extend it to the whole of the EU and EEA (Some EU countries already had reciprocal agreements in place), and they didn't undo that with Brexit (as even the Conservatives knew it would be particularly nasty to start freezing the pensions of people who'd retired to the EU back when the rules said their pension wouldn't be frozen - but also nasty to only freeze the pensions of those retiring to the EU after Brexit, while letting older pensioners keep the yearly inflation uplift.). The only other country that I'm aware of that freezes the state pensions of people because they've chosen to retire abroad is New Zealand. As for the idiots saying it's because of the cost of the migrants.. - asylum seekers are funded out of the foreign aid budget. Fewer asylum seekers would simply give more money to aid projects around the world, not to pensioners.

Surely it's "surprised", not "disappointed".

Blame Brexit for that. The pound was worth more than 52 baht the day before the vote. 47 baht a few days later, and it's not as if it's recovered in the years since. it's around 45-46 baht right now - and that's following a recent improvement. You can still get under £550 these days if you book 4-5 months in advance, avoid school holidays, and avoid peak season in December/January and you don't fly direct... - i.e. Etihad in September is £536 return on skyscanner at the moment.

Thailand is negotiating for visa-free access to Schengen. Won't help Brits obviously, but that could definitely be useful for Thais living in the UK as it would get rid of the need to get a visa for a day trip to France or Belgium, or just the whole pain of dealing with visas when booking a holiday in Europe (because the visa process for Schengen requires that you have booked the flights, and booked the hotels, prior to applying for the visa - which means you have to either pay extra for a refundable booking, or be willing to lose the money if the visa isn't granted on time). I have a Thai wife, but I'm currently in Hong Kong, and she can cross the border to China with no issues where I have to get a visa in advance. The Thai and UK passports are moving in opposite directions on the passport strength list that shows the number of countries you can enter visa free.

Exactly. I first came to Thailand when they were building the original skytrain. Traffic and air pollution from the traffic was a lot worse then than at any time since the skytrain and MTR opened. I remember one time, just sitting on an 8 lane road (4 lanes each way), completely stopped in one direction, with everyone else, for over half an hour - and this was out by Seacon Square, not in the centre. In 45 minutes, we moved 12 metres - that half an hour in the middle of it we didn't move at all... The simple fact is Thailand has built a lot of public transit systems in the last 25 years (first skytrain opened in 1999). Imagine what the traffic was like before that. - and that's not even taking into account that what's coming out of the exhaust is generally a lot cleaner now also. What has gotten a lot worse... - the queues at immigration seem to be a lot slower than they used to be. Of course they're doing more - in that now you have the fingerprint scanners - but I think that's part of the problem... the fingerprint scanners themselves seems to be what takes up all the time.

I think if you're teaching in the better international schools... But technically I suppose that's separate from the Thai education system.

In Hong Kong, you use Octopus for the small purchases. It came out early and is basically accepted everywhere and is quicker than paying cash. If Rabbit could have managed to do the same - get accepted by everyone from market stalls to McDonald's for small purchases, you wouldn't need cash in Thailand either. The last time I used cash here was the hairdressers in January, and I took it out of the ATM especially for that. But the last time I used cash was my last trip to Thailand - because the ridiculous ATM fees effectively force you to take out large amounts of cash.

No idea where I fit. I met my Thai wife in London. She's two years older than me (but still looks ten years younger, even though we've now been married 25 years). Now I'm actually working in Hong Kong (which is very useful given Thailand's new tax rules as I'll have a Hong Kong pension), and if I ever retire, I'll then be a retiree, but until then???

Probably includes hybrids in the 40%. BEV = 100% battery PHEV = Plug in Hybrid HEV = non-plug in Hybrids. (i.e. Petrol or Diesel powered "self-charging" hybrids. - How the marketers got away with that bull<deleted> nobody knows.) All end in EV.

I would have to disagree. At least with American Traveller. Got one in London that I used to go to Hong Kong last year (very first use of that bag), and I had to take it to the Samsonite service centre in Hong Kong to get it repaired (under warranty) because the pull-out handle for wheeling it around broke on the walk between Hong Kong and Central stations (maybe it actually broke on the plane, but friction held it together until I got off the train from the airport). Similarly I have an old Samsonite suitcase, one of the magnesium ones in green with leather bought from Selfridges back in the 90s, before I was married and had kids so I had money, which was definitely not cheap, where the leather stops for sitting it on (it had two wheels, rather than four - so it wasn't a spinner) fell off. And I had a blue Samsonite, again this one got fixed in Hong Kong - (maybe it's the baggage handling at HKIA), where one of the wheels fell off.

It is supposed to be illegal in the UK to make someone stateless. She is currently stateless. The law that allows the revocation of nationality was supposed to be used on people who naturalised in the UK and then commited a crime, so that at the end of their sentence, they would have to return to their original country. It's not supposed to be used against people who were born in the UK, British at birth, and definitely not supposed to be used against people with no other nationality - because we're signed up to a UN treaty that says we will not make someone stateless. Having the ability to make her stateless because she was still under 21 at the time, so in theory COULD still apply for another nationality because of where her mother was born, when the government would not have been allowed to do it if she was 22 - is particularly odd. Personally, I think she was born in the UK, grew up in the UK, had British nationality (and no other nationality) so she should be the UK's problem to deal with. If that means stick her in jail when she returns, so be it (assuming she's done something that she can be charged with so that there's a court case...)

That link had a phrase I didn't expect to see. Consular letter from the embassy is free. FREE - from the British Embassy? I don't believe it.

In the UK, the airline doesn't check for overstay. They solely concern themselves with whether you have the right to enter the country you're flying to. Think of dual nationals flying to one of their "home" countries. They will check in with the airline with their passport for that country, but it's not necessarily going to be the same passport they entered the UK on. Not checking passports when leaving the country is why the UK has no idea how many overstayers there are.