bkk_mike

I'm just glad we bought our house when it was 60+ baht to the pound rather than now.

Exactly. Qatar airways goes out of the way to advertise their Q Suite. But a significant number of their planes don't actually have it - and it's not like they highlight that the plane doesn't have it - or discount the business class ticket. If you're an airline geek, you can generally work it out - and pick the flight with the QSuite when booking. - But regular people simply expect to get what was advertised.

They're buying a house they intend to live in. That's unlikely to get cheaper if they invest the money somewhere else for a while. I bought our house in Thailand back in 2000. We lived in it for over a decade until work forced me back into the office in the UK in 2013, and we intend to retire in it when I stop working. Do you think I could still buy it now for what I bought it for then? - Even in baht terms, not factoring in that I was getting over 60 baht to the pound when we bought it. And yes - the house in Thailand is in my wife's name because I'll take it being in her name over some hopefully extendable lease or a dodgy company structure. But we've been married 25 years and have three kids, so I don't think I have anything to worry about on that score.

Do people not understand that winnings on gambling are not taxed in the UK? So long as they don't transfer it to Thailand in a year where they spend more than 180 days in Thailand, it's also not taxable in Thailand, even under the new rules.

No they won't. HMRC take their money out of the bet, not out of the winnings.

You really should say where you're from... If you're British, the Philippines has an advantage for retirement in that your state pension won't be frozen. English is spoken more widely in the Philippines. The food is generally better (and spicier) in Thailand. Retirees to the Philippines have the option of joining the government's universal healthcare scheme (not an option, I believe, in Thailand, unless you work and pay taxes there.) Both countries have similar restrictions on foreign ownership of land, but in both foreigners can own condominiums. You're far more likely to see a Typhoon/Hurricane in the Philippines. Due to the history, with the Philippines having been a US territory, with long term US military bases, there are more American retirees in the Philippines. You're more likely to get shot in the Philippines. You're more likely to die in a traffic accident (especially if you're on a motorbike) in Thailand.

You know, if they're living full time in Canada, they're technically not allowed to travel to the UK to use the NHS. It's called fraud.

The UK stopped signing new reciprocal agreements in 1981. The only time since then that countries got added was with the EU Single market as it became illegal to pay different amounts to people just because they moved to another country in the EU. You might have a better chance of persuading the CPTPP to have a similar rule, and force the UK (and New Zealand, which is the other country that freezes pensions of people who retire abroad) to increase pensions consistently across CPTPP members. After all, the UK state pension isn't frozen if you live in the Philippines, but is frozen in Thailand...

Is Thailand a country where home schooling is legal? After all most home-schooling is religious nuts making sure their kids aren't taught evolution.

I've travelled for work to enough countries, enough times to know what immigration deem as covered, and what they would have issues with. Admittedly I'm talking about going to the local office of the company you already work for in another country. (Maybe another company if you're going on a training course). Essentially it sounds like Thailand wants their rules to be the same as other countries - maybe in an attempt to simplify matters for multinationals where they might currently skip Thailand and just go to Hong Kong and Singapore. i.e. Rather than require people on a business trip to get a special visa for Thailand if they're touring around their regional offices (which is what Thailand has demanded in the past), they want to be as easy to travel to as other business locations. Admittedly most business trips are a week or two. The longest I had was 3 weeks in Tokyo in 2000. I did have a two week training tour once (I was the one giving the training) - Sydney, Tokyo, and Hong Kong - for two weeks in total back in 2003 if I remember correctly. Business travel is not what it was - far easier to just go on a zoom chat with people than get signoff for a trip nowadays - except the big boss trips... - those still happen - but I don't go on those...

It doesn't look like good news for everyone. I seem to remember Russians were getting 90 days on arrival in the last year or so (Russia has a bilateral agreement meaning Thais don't need a visa for Russia), but they're getting downgraded to 60 days also.

It's where you're here on business, but not employed here - still being paid in the country where you're employed. Most commonly it's training (either as the trainer or going to get training), or, back in the day at least, to do software upgrades. Still true where the system is, for security reasons, not accessible via the internet. For companies with operations in multiple countries, it will include things like visits to teams working for them by the big boss from abroad.

Thailand has hydro and solar. Including floating solar on a lake created by a hydro dam. So not all the electricity is from fossil fuels. Also, electric motors are that much more efficient than a combustion engine that it's still cleaner even if all the electricity is generated by coal. But keeping passing on that oil company misinformation that you read "somewhere".

I realise I'm preaching here but. Until I saw it said GB News... - I thought it had to be the Daily Fail. The "net-zero" climate policies, if actually followed, rather than curtailed by the government back when Cameron was in charge, would have had more wind farms (where the price of electricity did not shoot up because of a war in Ukraine), and less gas-fired power station when the gas price shot up two years ago. The cost of electricity and gas is higher in the UK because of the cost of gas being higher - nothing to do with net zero. Admittedly part of the price hike is actually Brexit - but god forbid somebody pointed that out... - Because not being in the EU, we couldn't join the scheme where countries without their own massive gas storage facilities got allocated facilities in countries which did have storage. Admittedly we used to have storage facilities ourselves back when British Gas was a public company and security of supply was a factor in how they operated, but all our facilities had been closed, because for the privatised British Gas, it wasnt a problem to just buy gas at the spot price when they needed it - because British Gas gets to pass that price on to the electricity generating companies, so they didn't save any money by having any storage facilities. - There were of course mass bankrupcies in some of the electricity generating companies because they had to pay the spot price for Gas, but had already agreed electricity prices with their customers - based on far lower gas prices. So how has the government dealt with this... - by subsidising the remaining electricity companies, but in such a way that customers get screwed over. - Prices are all a lot higher (at certain points the UK had the highest electricity prices in the world), Standing charges are a lot higher, but at least the electricity companies are now raking in the money, rather than continuing to go bust. - But it's all because of the jump in gas prices, and the lack of storage facilities meaning the UK didn't have the option to not pay for gas when it was literally the worst time to be buying gas. All of this is nothing to do with net zero. Hence the assumption it was the Daily Fail, and their usual what shall we make up this week bull<deleted>. But instead it's GB News, living down to the fact that they are not classified as a news service - because they simply aren't one.

You know the rock was moved, don't you? That's also only the top of the original rock because they built a wharf where it was originally.

That's probably the other side of the deal. I.e. Russians gets visa free entry for 90 days because Thais can go to Russia. Chinese are about to get the same because Thais are about to get visa free entry to China. And next it will be EU nationals, meaning pretty much the only country in Europe that won't let Thais in visa-free will be the UK. And the Brits will be the ones left getting 30 days on arrival in Thailand instead of 90.

I've come to the conclusion that an awful lot of people on this website have never met rich Thais, and think they don't exist.

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...