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Arkady

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  1. Glad to see these were all voluntary renunciations.
  2. They have told the media they will prevent shops selling fried flower but there is nothing about that in the draft bill. I searched the word flower in Thai and nothing. No questions about that from shop owners and growers in the public hearing at the ministry either. Perhaps it is something that will come later in ministerial regulations they don't need to get through parliament.
  3. It seems that being a Thai citizen makes you more likely to get on the radar of Thai call centre gangs operating from Cambodia or other locations. I was targeted by one a few days ago. It was the fake police scam claiming to be investigating money laundering and drug smuggling. They had my full name and ID card number in addition to my mobile number and claimed I had made a transaction with a named Thai person on a specific date in October and asked me to jot down a case number. I hung up at that point, having decided it was a scam, as the guy kept ignoring my insistence that he give me his name, rank and department, so I could check the fixed line number and call him back. They kept on calling for a few hours and more sporadically over the next couple of days using 06 mobile numbers which I didn't answer and immediately blocked them. I did pick up one more time when they used a different prefix and it was a different voice but obviously the same gang. I didn't speak and immediately blocked the number. My personal data could have come from an employee selling lists of personal data from any number of sources, including banks, credit card companies or any government office that has personal data plus phone number. Be warned. They make themselves sound quite scary and the background noise of the call centre could easily pass for a cop shop.
  4. Yes. A PR's 13 digit ID number, which remains the same, if he upgrades to citizenship, should be used as his TIN. However, in cases where they or their company continue to use their old foreigner TIN, it doesn't seem to cause a problem. As a PR I filed for tax under my 13 digit number for years. Then I moved to a company that ignored me when I told them to use my TIN. They applied for a new foreigner TIN for me and insisted on using that the 3 years I worked there. I filed my tax return under my 13 digit number as usual submitting the documentation from the company with the foreigner number. The RD had no problem with this.
  5. This has been posted before but probably not everyone has seen it. There was a detailed proposal under the first Thaksin government to merge the MOI departments that handle citizenship and PR together with the two SB citizenship departments (one for naturalisation and one for wives of Thai citizens) and the PR desk at CW that handles applications. As you would expect, it was resisted by the police tooth and nail and one of the arguments apparently fielded was that police couldn't bear to give up their police ranks (and parachute wings and medal ribbons too I guess) and become ordinary civil servants. So it got shot down or whoever was pushing it ran our of time in office. As you know, the the 1967 ministerial regulations pursuant to the 1965 Nationality Act were revised last year, following a cabinet resolution in January 2022, and included a plan to kick SB out of the process completely and take it all in house at the MOI. For reasons that have not been disclosed the new ministerial regulations were not issued before the Prayut government that commissioned them left office - possibly due to the impracticality of setting MOI facilities for application in each province, as called for in the draft regulations. It is a rough guess that, if the current minister and team ever get around to looking at this issue, they will probably want to go ahead and put the entire citizenship process under the MOI to have total control over it. The problem of provincial applications can be easily solved by having an office in Bangkok or Lamlukka handle applications nationwide in the same way as CW handles nationwide applications for PR. There is huge inefficiency in the current system, e.g. why does SB need two citizenship departments when both of them are under worked? Also there is the problem of lack of communication between SB and the MOI which looks down on the police and often leaves them guessing. Personally I hope for future applicants that the current government doesn't get around to looking at the citizenship issue and doesn't make any changes to the process. Intuition tells me that any changes would be for worse. Nearly in 2008 that allowed males with Thai wives to apply without PR. However, that was forced on an extremely reluctant MOI establishment by lawmakers intent on eliminating gender discrimination in the law (they succeeded only partially.) My advice to anyone already qualified is not to procrastinate, as whatever happens to the regulations and SB's involvement, it is only likely to get harder.
  6. Sounds like a mistake. Unless something has changed since I last did it before becoming a citizen, you should have the multi in your passport. I just double checked my old passport. You better go back to CW and get it corrected.
  7. You need 3 full tax years (1 Jan to 31 Dec) to qualify for both citizenship (with a Thai spouse) and PR, assuming you make the other qualifications. PR has a specific application time which is announced annually and usually runs till the year end but I think you can apply at the end of your third year and submit tax return in the New Year. Citizenship is open for application any time. So you can apply after submitting your tax return for the 3rd year. So, if you keep working continuously you will make the the 3 year qualification end 2024. For more info on PR see the AN Camerata PR thread.
  8. One day the red book and the blue/white books will be replaced by smart card. This will upset people whose job it is to issue these pointless documents. When will this happen? Could be next year or 20 years hence. Is Anutin the man to shake things up? Probably not, or if he does it might not be to the advantage of PR holders, given his remarks about foreigners during COVID.
  9. Looking at Anutin's monologues in media about drawing up a hit list of mafiosi appointed for reasons unknown as kamnans and pooyai baan at the Interior Ministry, gun control and other hot button issues, I found my mind a wandering to what he might do to the citizenship application process, if anything. The stage is set for him to make major changes, if he has a mind to do so, as a result of the failure of the Prayut government to issue the new ministerial regulations they ordered the ministry to draw up. We will have to see but something tells me that applicants will be better off, if he never turns his attention to this issue during his tenure.
  10. That is BTS's racist policy I am afraid. Even as a Thai citizen they tried to refuse me, on the grounds of being not Thai in the eyes of the idiotic girl on the desk. I had to cause a fuss and let an angry queue build up behind me. I refused to budge from the queue and she refused to back down, so I suggested that, in the interests of the other passengers waiting, she might like to call her supervisor. He arrived in seconds and ticked her office roundly, saying, "He is Thai. Give him the senior ticket NOW". She went bright red at the loss of face. I still can't imagine what she thought she was trying to prove.
  11. I think what happened with your HR lady was similar to what happens with lawyers and agents. They quote huge fees, claiming that a large element is bribes for Immigration and maybe the MoI too but it is unlikely that they pay more than about 30k of it to CW Immigration, if anything. They have very little decision making power and can't speed things up. It is unlikely that they pass anything higher up the chain than the front office CW staff, as it is much harder for them to get access and the applications go through a committee which makes it obvious to the others, if someone is getting favorable treatment.
  12. Interesting but no mention of the potential impact on the condo market, particularly in resort areas where there are hardly any Thai buyers and the developers have to cook up dubious schemes to sell foreigners the 51% that is supposed to be owned by Thais. Surely there are a number of foreign condo buyers who actually live in Thailand most of the year? They are obligated to remit the money for the purchases which could be taxable at 35% now. I am surprised the condo developers remain silent, as their train speeds on towards a brick wall.
  13. I think it is fair to assume that they will do this in the not too distant future. They already demand evidence of tax payment of employee and company for renewal of NON-B visas from what I recall. Also they may well raise the monthly amounts and lump sum. Under the first Thaksin regime they were raised substantially when he first came to power in 2001 (I think the lump sum was raised from 200k, so 4x). If you have already been in the country long enough for file a tax return and pay tax, there would be a logic to this for sure. Some double tax treaties allow the country of residence to collect tax and make the taxpayer try to claim a refund of tax already deducted in the other jurisdiction. Others will allow the taxpayer to claim a tax credit for tax already deducted in the country of origin. If you are earning the minimum required for renewal, currently 65k a month, you are way above the threshold that requires you to do a Thai tax return. So Immigration could easily ask for a certified copy of your prior year tax return. The current forms have a space to declare foreign income but I don't think there is anywhere you can claim a tax credit under a foreign DTA.
  14. Before COVID Chinese buying of condos had become a huge chunk of the developers' market and has apparently been creeping back since the Chinese have been allowed to travel again. China has a double tax treaty with Thailand but it seems only to address corporate tax payers, not individuals. Perhaps China was only concerned about its state owned enterprises at the time. Anyway most of the money is assumed to be earned in the black economy in China and wouldn't benefit from a DTA. So for any Chinese who spends over 180 days a year in Thailand the idea of having to pay tax on money brought in to buy a condo would be a bit of of turn off. Even for those who spend less than 180 days in country, the idea of foreign remittances maybe getting screened for income tax liability could spoke the market completely. Also when you think of a typical expat farang arried to a Thai who wants to bring in a chunk of cash to buy a bit of landed property for his family to live in, they could also be put off. Their money is not even going directly into a real estate investment which might eventually be granted exemption from scrutiny. It is technically being gifted to his wife.
  15. This new interpretation of the Revenue Code to mean ANY previous tax year, rather the apparent intent which was the THE previous tax year, gives rise to exactly that concern, since it appears to set no limit on how long ago that money was earned. Not only that the interest earned on the savings account going back indefinitely could also be deemed as taxable when remitted to Thailand. The Revenue Code doesn't specify income from property or real estate, as many of the translations suggest, but actually says income earned from assets overseas which could be any form of income generating asset. Furthermore there is no separate treatment of capital gains in the Revenue Code. So any capital gains, say from selling a house at any time in the past, could be taxed at progressive rates as income, if remitted to Thailand.
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