If I am correct because I come from a trustworthy and happy to help expats country I can still do the annual letter for my retirement extension correct

WHAT are you talking about?????

 

glegolo

correct, lets hope they are happy to help.

Hey we are Canadians EH

We are always happy to 'elp eh

Just need good Canadian Beer

I think  the 

32 minutes ago, Victornoir said:

The only western countries that refuse the annual letter of income are: USA, UK and Australia.

All others, including Canada, will accept your request.

Be careful, some embassies require a justification. For example, mine asks for a copy of the tax notice stating the gross income reported.

I think the reason that they all still do it is because they do.  Canada needs to see at least 3 months of deposits into a Canadian bank or a tax return showing that you make enough to qualify.  

I think it's more because you're from a nation of relatively few expats so immigration either never pushed your embassy to accurately verify the claimed income, or your embassy chose to hide when asked the question.

 

If you supplied a tax return it may have been good under the new requirements, if applied, but not all income is as easily verifiable.

Treetop the truth is as was discussed here before that the 3 embassies that were caught out were just letting people come in and sign a waiver. never actually checking.

With the Cdn Embassy it has always been a requirement that we actually show paperwork substantiating our claim and we also provide that info to thai immigration

1 hour ago, kingstonkid said:

Treetop the truth is as was discussed here before that the 3 embassies that were caught out were just letting people come in and sign a waiver. never actually checking.

With the Cdn Embassy it has always been a requirement that we actually show paperwork substantiating our claim and we also provide that info to thai immigration

Not actually correct.  The US and AU Embassies did but the British Embassy always required documentary proof of income before they would supply an income letter. They stopped supplying letters because Immigration insisted  that all proof be verified as accurate and that is impossible to do. UK data protection laws make it extremely difficult and time consuming, if not impossible, to achieve verification.

 

Plus, documentary proof is easily doctored as well.

 

It would be interesting to know how other countries achieve that accurate verification.

1 hour ago, john terry1001 said:

Not actually correct.  The US and AU Embassies did but the British Embassy always required documentary proof of income before they would supply an income letter. They stopped supplying letters because Immigration insisted  that all proof be verified as accurate and that is impossible to do. UK data protection laws make it extremely difficult and time consuming, if not impossible, to achieve verification.

 

Plus, documentary proof is easily doctored as well.

 

It would be interesting to know how other countries achieve that accurate verification.

Dutch required tax info not easy to doctor. So others can do it. It was a shame how the US did it at least the UK did something. 

5 minutes ago, robblok said:

1 hour ago, john terry1001 said:

Not actually correct.  The US and AU Embassies did but the British Embassy always required documentary proof of income before they would supply an income letter. They stopped supplying letters because Immigration insisted  that all proof be verified as accurate and that is impossible to do. UK data protection laws make it extremely difficult and time consuming, if not impossible, to achieve verification.

 

Plus, documentary proof is easily doctored as well.

 

It would be interesting to know how other countries achieve that accurate verification.

Dutch required tax info not easy to doctor. So others can do it. It was a shame how the US did it at least the UK did something. 

In the UK I get three individual annual P60 tax receipts from each of my three pensions. Created digitally by each pension company they all look different from each other and are easily doctored. The Embassy would have to contact both myself and each pension individually to waive data protection. That in itself would be a nightmare to organise for each individual, then HMRC, who are the only people who collate all that tax information, would have to confirm all information supplied is correct and again get the individual expat to agree to HMRC forwarding that information to the BE to satisfy the data protection laws. It would take months to set up each year, and be expensive.

 

If the 'Embassy leg' were removed, each expat would have to contact each 'income provider' and the HMRC themselves to get the required information in the correct format themselves and pass that on to the Embassy. It would be a nightmare. There are so many complaining about doing a simple 90 day report and TM30 the complexity of accurately verifying finance documentation just wouldn't happen.

 

The Danes, I believe, can again get an Embassy letter but bit will only include information regarding their Danish State Pension. It won't include any other separate incomes from other sources.

 

I have no idea how the Dutch do things but, as part of the EU, I should imagine they are controlled by very similar complex EU Data protection rules plus Tax rules and restrictions as the UK. 

3 minutes ago, john terry1001 said:

In the UK I get three individual annual P60 tax receipts from each of my three pensions. Created digitally by each pension company they all look different from each other and are easily doctored. The Embassy would have to contact both myself and each pension individually to waive data protection. That in itself would be a nightmare to organise for each individual, then HMRC, who are the only people who collate all that tax information, would have to confirm all information supplied is correct and again get the individual expat to agree to HMRC forwarding that information to the BE to satisfy the data protection laws. It would take months to set up each year, and be expensive.

 

If the 'Embassy leg' were removed, each expat would have to contact each 'income provider' and the HMRC themselves to get the required information in the correct format themselves and pass that on to the Embassy. It would be a nightmare. There are so many complaining about doing a simple 90 day report and TM30 the complexity of accurately verifying finance documentation just wouldn't happen.

 

The Danes, I believe, can again get an Embassy letter but bit will only include information regarding their Danish State Pension. It won't include any other separate incomes from other sources.

 

I have no idea how the Dutch do things but, as part of the EU, I should imagine they are controlled by very similar complex EU Data protection rules plus Tax rules and restrictions as the UK. 

We as Dutch can ask a statement from tax authorities.. not easily doctored they can validate.

4 hours ago, kingstonkid said:

Treetop the truth is as was discussed here before that the 3 embassies that were caught out were just letting people come in and sign a waiver. never actually checking.

With the Cdn Embassy it has always been a requirement that we actually show paperwork substantiating our claim and we also provide that info to thai immigration

Untrue as pointed out already.  In addition, you previously said:

 

Quote

Canada needs to see at least 3 months of deposits into a Canadian bank or a tax return . . . .

Deposits could be from anywhere and tax returns may not cover all income so there's no real proof available for everyone and some countries recognised this when pressed so bowed out of the process.  I don't know if the Canadian Embassy were asked and ignored any request, or if they simply weren't asked.

Nowadays everything can be falsified. 

 

However most embassies/consulate believe that their citizens are honest persons and that only a small percentage falsify their documents. 

 

Therefore some write in their "Letter of Income" the words "We herewith certify that..." despite they didn't really "check/control" the documents presented. 

 

They also know that there are agents, who can fix everything for a "reasonable " amount, making it unnecessary the risk to falsify documents. 

 

The Australian, British, U.S.A. embassies seems to not share the opinion of the other nationalities embassy/consulate. 

5 hours ago, kingstonkid said:

Treetop the truth is as was discussed here before that the 3 embassies that were caught out were just letting people come in and sign a waiver. never actually checking.

With the Cdn Embassy it has always been a requirement that we actually show paperwork substantiating our claim and we also provide that info to thai immigration

Untrue Uk embassy operated under same principals as Canadian embassy.

One thing that's overlooked in Embassies providing income verification letters is even if they can 110% guarantee that you are receiving that income in your home country it doesn't prove you can support yourself here.

 

Misses what if any liabilities you have. I know people on 6 figure pensions that are broke and cash poor. Very!

 

Even 65k thb per month, "historical", payments is only an indication at best that you will be able to continue to do so.

 

Nothing is guaranteed in current economic climate. Far, far from it.

Government backed securities? Yeap, that's a bit of a bad joke at present. Wanna go for bail out 3, 4 or 5. Even money in the bank secured by Gov't isn't totally safe.

9 hours ago, robblok said:

We as Dutch can ask a statement from tax authorities.. not easily doctored they can validate.

But does that validated statement include the third party source of your income? I don't think EU data protection allows inclusion of third party information without the independent written agreement of that third party. The statement can be supplied for your personal information but can't be passed directly to a third party (your Dutch Embassy) without agreement of all involved party's written consent.

13 minutes ago, john terry1001 said:

But does that validated statement include the third party source of your income? I don't think EU data protection allows inclusion of third party information without the independent written agreement of that third party. The statement can be supplied for your personal information but can't be passed directly to a third party (your Dutch Embassy) without agreement of all involved party's written consent.

Yes it does, if you have filed tax you can ask for a statement from the tax office and they will give you one it will include all you get from all sources. I believe its an IB-60 statement.