Expats worries: What's next?

[swissie]

6 hours ago, RocketDog said:

Agreed.

 

Also, many countries, including USA, have a double taxation treaty with Thailand, and many other countries, that already allows THAILAND to tax NEWLY EARNED INCOME.

It is not currently enforced, but certainly could be. If you read the treaty, and I have, the HUGE loophole is that if you have enough in the bank to prove that each month's income to your account is less than your current balance, then it's not new money. This treaty applies to money that is not taxed in your home country already.

 

So....... if they "wanted us out" this would be the fast/legal/easy way to do it.

 

As for Occam's Razor, the simplest explanation is that Thailand just wants long stay people to be able to provide for themselves on a daily basis and in emergency situations. That is common in many countries and I don't view it as a sinister portent.

 

The wailing and whinging is coming principally from two groups of expats: those who see every change in immigration law as a move to harm expats and those who truly don't have the cash to cover emergency Healthcare, regardless of why they don't have it.

 

The only true victims of recent changes are those who have been here many years and whose pension payments and/or savings simply don't meet the new requirements. I think these folks should be grandfathered, but alas, the Thai government very seldom consults me on policy changes.

 

Finally, Life Isn't Fair, and, The Only Constant Is Change.

 

Welcome to Planet Earth, a galactic backwater run by a species of insane apes.

 

I could be wrong about everything though, except for the insane apes part.

"I could be wrong about everything though, except for the insane apes part."

 

Priceless, but discustingly "hitting close to home". Only conselation: The insane apes are equally ditributed all over the globe.

[swissie]

4 hours ago, Bangkok Barry said:

 

Electric is 4000 max, tv 500, internet 600, petrol for the pickup 2000, 500 or so for an evening out which includes two beers at a place near me that does excellent English food. That leaves around 7500 a month for food.

 

I spend 100 baht a week on bread for breakfast toast, baked by my restaurant owner friend. I have noodle soup or my wife cooks masaman chicken or green chicken curries for lunch. Almost all evening meals cost around 50 baht, be it beef mince, pork loin/belly or roast chicken, or a toasted bacon sandwich. The only 'extravagance' is salmon which might cost up to 150 a couple of times a month. The food bill includes an average of 1000 a month on English food that a supplier puts on a bus for me to collect - meat pies (steak/pork) at around 65 each, large English bacon slices, fish fingers.

 

My wife mostly has noodle dishes and fish bought from the market, or cooks from stuff in the garden. I'll have a couple of beers and a snack while watching the football at the weekend. Used to do that each evening but stopped it and lost a few kilos as a result. I favour Siam Weizen and Tapper.

I do also now pay 7500 for the pickup, but that finishes soon. No rent, as I bought the house for 600,000 when the exchange rate was at its best, and spent double that on doing it up and extending it. Four bedrooms, two bathrooms, two lounge areas, one up one down, on one rai of land. I'd guess the house is worth around 3.5 million now.

For all the "non-believers": 15K absolutely possible in the "sticks". (Done it - been there). Mainly because there is nothing one can spend "Big-Money" on. (Excluding building a Big-Mansion).

 

Recent studies clearly have shown that the average Farang (wanting to go on a rampage), can not consume more that 15 Kilos of "Sticky-Rice" per day without suffering ill effects.

[Bangkok Barry]

1 hour ago, marcusarelus said:

You wrote, "What nonsense. Many, many expats have Thai family and can't leave without tearing their wife away from her family. How is that simple"

 

I've had enough of your nonsense, as have others who have contacted me, and I've put you on my ignore list.

[Bangkok Barry]

59 minutes ago, swissie said:

Mainly because there is nothing one can spend "Big-Money" on.

 

And that is why many so-called poor country-side Thais have plenty of money. They don't have much to spend it on, and are not interested in spending on foreign holidays etc. They save all the money they make. Some of my family are teachers of long standing and make very good money but spend little. One did spend 80,000 on a 'special' car registration plate.....

[sanemax]

5 hours ago, wgdanson said:

Well done. My electric is never more than 2000, and I have 'discovered' Tapper @ 53 baht a can! 

What about car insurance, maybe 12000 a year, road tax @ 5000, health insurance????

 

 

Its  51 Baht a can from Big Big C'c

[Bangkok Barry]

5 hours ago, wgdanson said:

What about car insurance, maybe 12000 a year, road tax @ 5000, health insurance????

 

I actually edited after to say that obviously there are one-off expenses. Car insurance is indeed 12,000 but the road tax is only 1,300. And then there's 5,000 for my visa. All that might bring the monthly expenses spread out over the year close to 17,000. Health insurance is far too expensive to deal with, but my local village hospital is surprisingly good.

[Ron jeremy]

On July 23, 2019 at 9:50 PM, OneMoreFarang said:

It's almost funny when some people here complain that they don't feel welcome in Thailand (anymore) and at the same time some (many) of the same people complain about foreigners in their home country.

 

I think it's easy to understand that every country, and citizens of that country, like some foreigners and others not so much.

If foreigners (here or i.e. in the UK) work officially and pay taxes few citizens don't like them. But if foreigners work illegally many don't like it. And if foreigners break the rules they also don't like it.

 

Personally I have no problem in Thailand. I work with work permit, renew my business visa once a year, and my company takes care of the 90 days registration. No problems at all!

 

It seems foreigners who have no money and no or little income have problems in Thailand. Should we blame Thailand that they are not interested in people who have no money to spend and are maybe a burden to the local hospitals, etc.?

Unfortunately, Thailand attracts the lowlifes of the world. Take a walk around pattaya, what a shithole, not only the city , but the people living there. But better off in Thailand then living beside me at home. Much rather have them pissing themselves on a barstool in pattaya.

Surely I can u derstand why the Thais have enforced these rules. 

Get rid of the lowlifes! 

[sanemax]

4 minutes ago, Ron jeremy said:

Unfortunately, Thailand attracts the lowlifes of the world. Take a walk around pattaya, what a shithole, not only the city , but the people living there. But better off in Thailand then living beside me at home. Much rather have them pissing themselves on a barstool in pattaya.

Surely I can u derstand why the Thais have enforced these rules. 

Get rid of the lowlifes! 

No, the retirees havent had many problems with their retirement visa

[Rawairat]

In Australia this year I had to supply a foreign tax id to support my non resident tax status. All started with some USA law tracking citzens foreign cash. Figured a Thai one was the easiest and least likely to cause me financial issues. Time will tell if i was right?

On the other Thai visa requirements, it is still easier to stay here than in my home country as a foreigner. Saying that the rewards are better there.

[ThaiBunny]

13 minutes ago, Rawairat said:

In Australia this year I had to supply a foreign tax id to support my non resident tax status.

To whom?

[ukrules]

On 7/24/2019 at 12:01 PM, thaibeachlovers said:

I kept the 800,000 permanently in the bank. Wishing to live permanently in LOS it seemed the logical thing to do.

If not able to afford that, can one actually able to afford to live in LOS? Some spend more than that on booze a year.

Before my current 1 year stamp runs out next year I'm going to get another Elite visa I think.

 

I just haven't decided whether it will be the 5 year version or the 20 year version, I'm leaning towards the 20 year version right now but who knows, maybe I will just leave this place.

 

If I'm one of the few foreigners left then why bother staying. I'm sure I can just go elsewhere without any problems.

 

That's a decision to make early next year and a lot can change in 7 or 8 months.

[marcusarelus]

9 hours ago, Bangkok Barry said:

 

I've had enough of your nonsense, as have others who have contacted me, and I've put you on my ignore list.

When you don't like the message - attack the messenger.  Happens a lot.  I've been tempted to do it as some people can't have a meaningful debate without insult.  So far I believe I have stayed on topic never trading insults for facts and will continue to do so. 

 

Expat worries - I don't have many.  Insurance could make it impossible for me and a lot of others to stay and moving my wife to America would create many problems as we'd have to dissolve nice housing here for substandard housing in the USA. 

[Mike Teavee]

15 hours ago, marcusarelus said:

You have made a mistake.  What do you expect anyone to do?  

I think this is a little harsh, circumstances (micro & macro) change all of the time and it's easy to see how the drop in FX values + events like Global Financial Crisis could decimate somebody's carefully planned out retirement plans... so whilst we can't personally do anything (well we could, we could stick 800K in the Bank for them), we should at least have some sympathy for them.

 

1 hour ago, marcusarelus said:

Expat worries - I don't have many.  Insurance could make it impossible for me and a lot of others to stay and moving my wife to America would create many problems as we'd have to dissolve nice housing here for substandard housing in the USA. 

If it did, i don't believe anybody could reasonably say that you made a mistake & should have planned for it when you were doing your retirement planning so many years ago, however anybody who is planning their retirement now HAS to have it on their list of things that might happen, we all know it's not required today but I would say that anybody planning their retirement today made a mistake if they didn't plan for it & it happens sometime in the future. 

 

[thaibeachlovers]

On ‎7‎/‎24‎/‎2019 at 9:34 PM, ivor bigun said:

Nothing to do with not being able to afford it,its MY money why should i tie it up permanantly,its mine if i want to spend it ,up to me.

Sent from my SM-A720F using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app
 

Because marriage extension is way, way more complicated than retirement.

Do what you like- why would I care?

[thaibeachlovers]

2 hours ago, ukrules said:

If I'm one of the few foreigners left then why bother staying. I'm sure I can just go elsewhere without any problems.

????????????

I never stayed in LOS for the other foreigners. I stayed there because I loved Thailand.

There were a million things that I wanted to do more than associating with other foreigners.

[thaibeachlovers]

8 hours ago, Ron jeremy said:

Unfortunately, Thailand attracts the lowlifes of the world. Take a walk around pattaya, what a shithole, not only the city , but the people living there. But better off in Thailand then living beside me at home. Much rather have them pissing themselves on a barstool in pattaya.

Surely I can u derstand why the Thais have enforced these rules. 

Get rid of the lowlifes! 

Glass half empty then?

I also walked around Pattaya many many times over 30 years and never saw any low lifes. I did see some I didn't want to associate with, but that did not mean they were bad people, though I admit some were a bit strange.

[thaibeachlovers]

2 hours ago, Rawairat said:

In Australia this year I had to supply a foreign tax id to support my non resident tax status. All started with some USA law tracking citzens foreign cash. Figured a Thai one was the easiest and least likely to cause me financial issues. Time will tell if i was right?

On the other Thai visa requirements, it is still easier to stay here than in my home country as a foreigner. Saying that the rewards are better there.

My sympathies for being Australian then. NZ only requires that one is not in the country for a certain number of days in a tax year. No stupid rules about foreign tax id. What happens if one is retired and doesn't work in Thailand?

[marcusarelus]

29 minutes ago, Mike Teavee said:

If it did, i don't believe anybody could reasonably say that you made a mistake

A while back the USD tanked and here on Thai Visa I read about all the bad things that were happening and all of the posters looking for sympathy about the terrible state of their lives.  I got a job.  I didn't like it.  I was too old to work and many other negative consequences.  It hurt to walk up the 4 flights of stairs and I had some sever physical consequences as a result of the heat but it was the only alternative to remain financially stable.

 

If a poster asked about the alternatives instead about ranting that some mysterious Thai gnome who controls the value of the baht I would be the first to provide information.  

 

Ranting about nonsense financial theories or the glories of a wrecked communist country as opposed to Thailand does nothing for me.  

 

I lived in South Texas for many years and know the score and Mexico is not comparable to Thailand.  I lived in Vietnam and it's not comparable.  Chinese are running to get out of China with their money and persons.  Mexicans and South Americans too.   

 

What can an expat expect?  Thailand will get more expensive and visa's will get more complicated.  Is this really difficult to figure out? 

 

I'd suggest dwelling on solutions rather than crying about problems would be a more productive approach. 

 

Anyone can complain but it takes a bit of brainpower to figure out solutions and answers to problems. 

Edited July 26, 2019 by marcusarelus

[thaibeachlovers]

15 minutes ago, marcusarelus said:

What can an expat expect?  Thailand will get more expensive and visa's will get more complicated.  Is this really difficult to figure out? 

Good post ( all of it, not just quoted bit )

It doesn't HAVE to get worse. Lightning might strike and make them more friendly, but in my experience all life is getting worse- entire species are being exterminated as I write, the planet is trying to kill us all, my country has gone PC barking, staying long term in Thailand is getting harder. So what's new?

 

My philosophy is that life is <deleted> and then we die. So far I've been right most of the time.

 

[BritManToo]

1 minute ago, thaibeachlovers said:

My philosophy is that life is <deleted> and then we die. So far I've been right most of the time.

You're still alive, so can only be 50% right to date.

[thaibeachlovers]

10 minutes ago, BritManToo said:

You're still alive, so can only be 50% right to date.

LOL. I doubt I'm going to live forever, so going to be 100% right, eventually.

I think hope that something will change my life for the better is the only reason for staying alive.

The day I left Thailand for good was probably the worst day of my life, as there is nothing for me here except being cold and poor. In Thailand I was poor but warm, which was brilliant.

Problem with being happy for any reason is that it just makes the unhappy times worse.

Like the saying- "is it better to have loved and lost than never have loved at all?"- I'm going with the first part. When my marriage was good it was the best thing ever happened to me, but waking up alone for the rest of my life sucks.

 

Why is it that when life is great, some b'tard always comes along to ruin it? That's the story of my life.

Edited July 26, 2019 by thaibeachlovers

[BritManToo]

22 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

I'm going with the first part. When my marriage was good it was the best thing ever happened to me, but waking up alone for the rest of my life sucks.

I don't know, I hardly ever wake up alone.

So far 40 years of not waking up alone (apart from a 6 month 'divorce' blip 10 years back).

Edited July 26, 2019 by BritManToo

[ThaiBunny]

1 hour ago, thaibeachlovers said:

There were a million things that I wanted to do more than associating with other foreigners.

There are a million things I want to do but not many of them include associating with Thais except in the horizontal sense

[ivor bigun]

Glass half empty then?
I also walked around Pattaya many many times over 30 years and never saw any low lifes. I did see some I didn't want to associate with, but that did not mean they were bad people, though I admit some were a bit strange.

I love the people that say Pattaya only attracts low lifes,guess it takes one to know one ,or do they reckon they are the only decent person that comes here?
Funny we live here and i dont really know one low life,most are just ordinary married guys with nice wives and familly.i know you see the odd tattood guy wearing his wife beater t shirt,but honestly there were far more low lifes back home in my old town in the UK.

Sent from my SM-A720F using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app

[thaibeachlovers]

1 hour ago, BritManToo said:

I don't know, I hardly ever wake up alone.

So far 40 years of not waking up alone (apart from a 6 month 'divorce' blip 10 years back).

You live in LOS. I don't. If I lived in LOS, I could wake up with a lovely gurl, but where I live only grannies would sleep with me.

[thaibeachlovers]

1 hour ago, ThaiBunny said:

There are a million things I want to do but not many of them include associating with Thais except in the horizontal sense

There were a million things I wanted to do in LOS that didn't require associating with anyone, except in a peripheral way ie drivers, hoteliers or salespeople.

[giddyup]

22 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

You live in LOS. I don't. If I lived in LOS, I could wake up with a lovely gurl, but where I live only grannies would sleep with me.

Where do you live? I was always under the impression that you lived in LOS.

[ThaiBunny]

42 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

You live in LOS. I don't. If I lived in LOS, I could wake up with a lovely gurl, but where I live only grannies would sleep with me.

Don't knock grannies. I was reading only this morning that testosterone helps the older woman's sex life. You could have randy grannies chasing you down the High Street

[marcusarelus]

46 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

You live in LOS. I don't. If I lived in LOS, I could wake up with a lovely gurl, but where I live only grannies would sleep with me.

Have you tried a smart phone yet or do I have my people mixed up? 

[berrec]

On 7/25/2019 at 8:13 AM, KiChakayan said:

 

I dare to believe that this may give us an element of answer. 875 000 Bahts is 72000 a month, so most retiree would/should (roughly) belong to the top 10% household incomes. I could understand if Thai authorities wanted to enforce this, strictly on the basis of cost/benefit/risk analysis.

 

Then, of course the higher income middle to high income brackets are the main source of income tax, with the obvious exception of the very high incomes who can buy themselves into exemption. So why not having a look in applying that to all long term residents? Therefore, yes gentlemen, we may well face a situation were we would be asked to help solving the income inequality issue.

 

Interestingly Malaysia has, very explicitly, income tax exemption for foreign retirees. 

 

 

Obvious error in graph, 75,001 - 350,000 should be 175,001 - 350,000