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Oxx

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Posts posted by Oxx

  1. 1 hour ago, The Hammer2021 said:

    I deliberately kept my UK residence  to make things  easier as all the rules  are clear,  easy to follow and not onerous

    But earlier you wrote:
     

    On 5/8/2022 at 10:31 PM, dcollins said:

    I am a UK citizen but not currently tax resident anywhere.

    So you've either kept your UK residence and can open a broker account in the UK and pay UK taxes, or you haven't and you can open an account based upon notional Thai residence and (with a bit of planning) avoid all taxes.

    You do seem very confused.

  2. 8 hours ago, dcollins said:

    I have had a look now and all these providers require you to state a country of residence and say (I'm paraphrasing here) that the services available to you depend on where you're resident.

    They need this information for things such as withholding taxes on income.  And I suspect that some brokers will turn away Americans because of onerous monitoring and reporting requirements.

     

    8 hours ago, dcollins said:

    Presumably this is because the services are treated as being provided in that country, and they need to know what legislation they need to comply with. They will also be subject to reporting requirements and need to know where to send their reports.  That's how I understand it anyway. Now I wouldn't particularly care if they treated UK legislation as applicable and reported to HMRC, except that HMRC might then go back to them and say "hold on you've got the wrong tax authority - this person is not resident in the UK", and then what would happen to my account?

     

    You wouldn't want to be treated as UK-resident.  You would then potentially have to make a tax return every year and pay tax on your income and capital gains.  Then there's inheritance tax.  Saying you're resident in Thailand generally avoids the tax issues.  (You'd still have withholding tax on US income, which is a very good reason not to invest in American instruments.  Note that that tax will either be 30% or 15% depending on the broker used.)

     

    8 hours ago, dcollins said:

    Has this all changed then, or did you just not worry about it? I have a tax ID / UTR by the way.

    I am genuinely resident in Thailand, so it wasn't an issue for me.  And I don't have a Thai TIN.

     

    I would suggest you go down the "resident in Thailand" route too, provided you can provide proof of a Thai address.

  3. 9 hours ago, dcollins said:

    I am a UK citizen but not currently tax resident anywhere

    Are you sure about that? If you spend more than half the year in Thailand you're tax resident there.  Only people who are globe trotting throughout the year are not tax resident anywhere.

     

    Opening a brokerage account without being registered for tax is straightforward.  You could easily open an account with Saxo (Singapore), Swissquote (Luxembourg), Interactive Brokers (USA) without a tax ID.  (I've personally done all three.)

     

    However, you appear to want specifically to invest in mutual funds.  Only Swissquote will provide access to  a (smallish) range of funds with relatively high fees.

     

    Finally, you could open a brokerage account in Thailand and have access to a wide range of funds, provided you use an independent (not bank-owned) broker.

  4. Earlier in the year vaccine manufacturers were talking about new versions of their vaccines coming out in April (or thereabouts) which protected against newer variants of the virus.  Has anybody heard whether this is actually going to happen? And if so, when? (I've been holding off having a 4th jab in the expectation of something better for today's viral landscape, but if there's nothing around the corner, I'll bite the bullet.)

  5. On 4/24/2022 at 11:17 AM, Bluespunk said:

    Going on Hajj is not a sign of fundamentalism.

    What is it, then? Christianity pretty much abandoned the idea of pilgrimage centuries ago.  Only a few religious extremists do so these days.

     

    Would a normal person refrain from clipping their nails, or from wearing deodorant in a desert? Is kissing a stone normal? Is throwing pebbles at a stone column rational?

    If it's not a sign of fundamentalism, then it's a sign of lunacy.

  6. 1 hour ago, sjoegge said:

    It cost a little more than at the immigration

    I presume the Danish embassy is more reasonable than the British one.  The British Embassy charges 2,218 baht for each residence document - compared with Immigration's 200 baht.  You're also now required to provide proof of address, and I don't have any document meeting their criteria*.

     

    When it works, the service provided by Immigration is far simpler and cheaper.

     

    * The accepted documents are:  DVLA issued photocard driving licence, mortgage statement, tenancy agreement or Housing Association rent card, bank statement, letter from your bank, utility bill, council tax demand, Inland Revenue tax demand or a self assessment statement.  They also don't accept documents printed from the Internet.

  7. I've mentioned here previously that I needed two certificates of residence for selling and buying a car.

     

    Despite my failing health, I managed to hauled myself all the way to a remote and desolate part of Mueang Thong Thani, struggled to climb the dog-festooned steep steps, and made my application.  Then came the (seemingly utterly pointless) two weeks' wait for the certificates.

     

    Imagine how thrilled I was to receive the two certificates, only for my elation to be dashed when I found out that one had my address quite wrong, and the other was clearly intended for someone else.  Both certificates are useless.

     

    I guess I now have to waste a second day of my life and go to Chaengwattana to sort out this fiasco.  I don't suppose there's any other option such as 'phone or email?

     

    Just curious, but if anyone else has had a similar problem with these certificates, what should I expect? Am I going to need to submit my documents all over again/pay the fee again/wait a further two weeks for the certificates?

    • Like 1
    • Confused 1
  8. 21 minutes ago, Longwood50 said:

    The stock market in any country is "risky" Even heavily regulated countries like the USA get the fraud like Enron, World Com, Tyco, and of course Bernie Maddoff And this is a country that requires ongoing audited filings with the SEC. 

    Stock markets are supposed to be risky.  One accepts those risks in the hope of superior returns.

    The failure of individual companies simply underlines the importance of investing in a diversified portfolio of companies, so the failure of any one doesn't have a major impact upon one's wealth.

     

    The market regulation of Thai companies is comparable to that of most developed markets, with audits and filings of returns.  The auditors are often (if not usually) familiar names.  You can see a list of authorised auditors at https://market.sec.or.th/public/orap/AUDITOR01.aspx?lang=en .  One of the major problems, however, as I see it, is companies being run for the benefit of individual families, rather than for the benefit of all shareholders.  Before investing one needs to do one's due diligence.  Incidentally, the SET publishes the names of the largest shareholders in each company on its website.  This can be very helpful.  I don't believe the London Stock Exchange does anything similar.  Don't know about American exchanges.

     

    But returning to risk, foreign exchange risk far outweighs the risk of the odd company failing here and there.  That's why for someone living in Thailand and intending to stay here, Thai stocks are avery good option to provide for the future.

  9. 28 minutes ago, Longwood50 said:

    Investing in Thai stocks?  Why not just get cash and throw it out the window of your car, wouldn't that be easier? 

    Moronic comment.  Thai stocks are for companies in Thailand who (generally speaking) earn most of their income in Baht.  Invest in any other country and you're instantly faced with foreign exchange risk, and FX rates can (and often do) vary by 30% in a year.  For an investor whose expenses are in Baht, they are a pretty good investment (provided, of course, that one picks the right stocks).

     

    I don't invest in individual stocks, but I do invest in Thai mutual funds.  Tisco Strategic A has returned an annualised 18.93% per year over the last three years.  Can't imagine why anybody would be unhappy with such performance.  (The 10 year annualised performance figure is 11.24% - still pretty good.)

  10. 2 hours ago, overherebc said:

    Just don't get seriously ill or have a serious accident.

    I'm reminded of a speech given by Neil Kinnock (left wing British politician) in 1987:

     

    Quote

     

    If Margaret Thatcher wins on Thursday–

    – I warn you not to be ordinary

    – I warn you not to be young

    – I warn you not to fall ill

    – I warn you not to get old.

     

    How right he was.

    • Like 2
  11. Be aware that if you walk your dog in a public area there's a very real risk that it will be attacked by feral dogs.

     

    Even in my (upmarket) moobaan, my first dog (recently deceased, and pretty large by Thai standards) was attacked four times, first when he was a puppy by a dog owned by a builder, then three times by a female Siberian husky owned by a senior policeman who couldn't be bothered to secure his property properly.  In all cases this was when I was walking him (my dog, not the senior policeman) on a lead.

     

    Incidentally, I suggest you learn the technique of taking off your footwear and throwing it at an attacking dog repeatedly.  Very helpful in extremis.

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