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Mike Teavee

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Posts posted by Mike Teavee

  1. There's been a lot of talk in the news about same sex Civil Partnerships/Marriages (and about time to), but can a Hetro couple enter into a Civil Union/Partnership in Thailand? 

     

    Long story short I've never believed in marriage unless children are involved but reading the T&Cs of my pension it seems survivor benefits are only guaranteed if they go to my Wife or Civil Partner otherwise it's at the discretion of the Trustees & I wouldn't want to rely on their "Generosity".

     

    Does anybody know if Civil Union/Partnerships between a man & a woman are legal in Thailand and if so has anybody been through the process and could share some information on how to go about doing it. 

     

     

    Thanks

     

     

    MTV

  2. 37 minutes ago, TigerandDog said:

    Sorry DrJack but your answer re arrival by air is incorrect. There is a limit of 6 times per year when arriving by air. "Those who arrive at the airport without a prior visa will continue to receive a 30-day stamp up to 6 times per calendar year." 

     

    Before you start saying the link is NOT the Thai Embassy, I'm aware of that, but it's been posted to support my post correcting your comment re "no stated limit via air".

     

    New Visa Rules for Border Entry to Thailand | ThaiEmbassy.com

    There is no date on that article (Edit: it's from 19th April 2015) but pretty sure that the rule got recinded years ago (If I had to guess I'd say 2017/2018 but certainly before COVID).

     

    There's a lot of dated/misleading information out there, E.g. the London Thai Embassy (Edit: dated 16th October 2022) says max 3 times in 6 months...

    Foreigners who enter Thailand under this Tourist Visa Exemption category may only do so for 30 days at one time with a maximum of 3 times in a 6 month period by flight and 2 times a year for overland crossing.

     

    https://london.thaiembassy.org/en/publicservice/84256-tourist-visa?page=5d6636cd15e39c3bd00072dd&menu=5f4b6eb3f6ae4b236972c562

     

     

    End of the day it's at the IO's discretion so whilst there may/may not be a maximum limit, you are more likely to be challanged the more visa exempt entries you do so best advice for longer stays would be to get a Visa rather than relying on extensions + border bounces. 

     

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  3. 15 hours ago, Dogmatix said:

    Yes, your remittance to her Thai bank is a remittance and is assessable income for her, assuming you are not married.  There is an RD case about exactly this. A Thai woman received remittances from her foreign boyfriend abroad and it was deemed taxable income because they were not married. If married the RD would have accepted that the remittances were gifts from a spouse which is tax exempt up to 20 million baht a year. 

    Interesting, I read somewhere that you could claim to have a "Moral Obligation" to provide support to your Thai Partner (Not Spouse) but am guessing what is classified as a "Moral Obligation" would be something like having a Child together & not supporting her because it was you who asked her to stop working 12 hour days, 6 days a week so you could spend time together. 

     

    Just in case, I'll tweak my plans...

    • Remit a total of 210K for her (This would be her 60K tax free allowance + 150K which is taxed at nil rate) & she can start paying 1/2 the rent, utilities, groceries etc... 
    • Remit a total of 235K to me (Same 210K + an extra 25K for purchasing Health Insurance)
    • Remit Birthday/Xmas gifts (thinking 100K each) which I've a strong feeling she'll be using to take me on holiday for my Birthday/Xmas presents 😉

    Rest of my spends will come from savings already in Thailand so should be good for a couple of years until I can either get an LTR or confirmation that remitting my pension (starts in 2026) will not be taxed, either way I'll spend < 180 days in Thailand in 2026 so have an opportunity to top up my Thai Savings accounts as needed. 

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  4. Alcatraz (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1728102/) popped up in the "Recently added TV Shows" on my TV Box & I remember watching some of it but couldn't remember how it ended so set about re-watching from the start. 

     

    Got to the end & found out why I couldn't remember the story ending, Season 2 got canned so you're left with a lot of unanswered questions... 

     

    Quite an enjoyable show if you're happy to never find out the full story behind how the convicts disappeared/re-appeared 50 years later 😞 

     

    Do Not Watch if you need your TV Shows to have a satisfactory ending

  5. I prefer South Philippines (Visayas) & always thought that Cebu (excluding Cebu City & Mactan as too busy ) would be a good place to stay a while…. Maybe CarCar or Moalboal or even Bohol Island. 

     

    Spent quite a bit of time visiting Davao/Kapalong with my Ex & thought Tagum or Carmen would be good places to live if you don’t mind not being near a beach. 

  6. 31 minutes ago, Jingthing said:

    It's possible that it was more of a ballad than a disco song.  So if that's the case I doubt it would have been played in discos. I have some memories of places that I heard it that were not in discos but on the radio.

     

    I recall there was a bit of a travelogue aspect to the song in the lyrics. 

    Not Disco, has a bit of a travelogue theme about it & was from 1979 (45 years ago)...

     

    Logical Song Supertramp...

     

     

     

    Edit: People often called the song "Breakfast in America" but that is album title 

     

  7. 5 minutes ago, stat said:

    No one knows currently if Lifo, Fifo or any other accounting method will be used. I would also love to know which method they intend to use but I think they are not even aware that they need to specify it.

    No idea about Thailand but UK uses LIFO which would seem to be the sensible option for calculating Capital Gains/Losses

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  8. 7 hours ago, Neeranam said:

    Thanks, interesting, 

     

    Surely there will by an outcry by Thais, including myself,  if rich foreigners don't have to pay tax on their foreign income and we do. 

    This would be unconstitutional. 

    A lot of (if not most) countries offer incentives so "Wealthy" people will live there. E.g. UK (currently being discussed/reviewed after Sunak's wife was shamed into paying tax on her Indian income even though she didn't need to) & Singapore. 

     

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  9. 5 hours ago, Neeranam said:

    Why do long term visa holders get special treatment over Thais? 

    Are you sure about this? 

    The fact that some LTR Holders do not pay Tax on the Overseas Income has been published by many sources, but Sheerings seems to be the most quoted when it comes to Thailand's Tax rules so here's their take...

     

    https://sherrings.com/long-term-resident-visa-tax-concessions-thailand.html

     

    image.png.6999a9cadad5e835f17344e490022f80.png

     

     

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  10. 57 minutes ago, Thaindrew said:

    ATM withdrawals are reported as part of CRS to the country where you declare residency

    Do you have a link which says this only that would be a very large number of records & matching them to an individual would be a nightmare (e.g. my UK Bank doesn't know about my TIN or even my passport number & matching against Name/Date of Birth isn't accurate enough). 

     

    I had a look at the CRS XML Schema (available here https://www.oecd.org/tax/automatic-exchange/common-reporting-standard/schema-and-user-guide/) & it seems to be about reporting "Closing Balances", the period for which isn't clear, but the minimum standard seems to call for reporting at least once per year so it could just be your Bank reports to Thailand what your closing account balance is at the end of the year (Again, this is only of any use if they can match this information to you as an individual). 

     

    I believe they have no way of tracking ATM payments but could decide to look at an individual if they bring a lot of money into Thailand or have no visible means of supporting themselves (i.e. they don't bring any money into Thailand). 

     

    FWIW until things become clearer, I've decided to:-

    1. Bring in 235K THB pa which matches my tax free allowances (60K personal allowance, 25K towards Health Insurance & 150K at 0 Tax rate).
    2. Give the GF 360K pa (30K pm) to provide "Support" for her so she can now start paying 1/2 towards rent, utilities, groceries etc... 
    3. Use savings I already have in-country for the rest of my expenses. 

    I'll also be bringing back £8,000 from my next UK Trip which will be used when I need to purchase foreign currency for trips outside of Thailand (all paid for on my UK Credit card)... I can't say this change has made me plan more international trips as I was going to do more anyway but it's certainly giving me a nudge to do so over domestic travel. 

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  11. 3 hours ago, Misty said:

     

    Another example is a US taxpayer with rental income that isn't taxable because of deductible expenses such as depreciation, etc. The rental income isn't included in taxable income on a US 1040 tax filing, but can be included as income for an LTR visa application.

    Interesting, in the UK we report the gross rental income & then add entries to remove the deductibles but any Income from an ISA (Individual Savings Account, which could be many £1,000s) doesn't go on the Tax return so I'm assuming you would be able to supply a Dividend report from your ISA Provider to show any income received. 

     

  12. 53 minutes ago, jerrymahoney said:

    So far mixed. It is small and fast for 7500 baht but it mostly relies on Android software and apps have to be downloaded from Google play store. But you can plug in a USB hard drive and run movies music from that. 

     

    One nice thing is that you can run multiple Gmail accounts on Chrome which you cannot do on a PC.

     

    And I am prepping for the time when no financial stuff can be on Windows 10.

    Touchpad has gone on my (11 year old) Macbook Pro & was assuming I would need to buy a new Laptop as I have some hefty Excel spreadsheets that I use for my financial planning/tracking so curious as to how you find using the Chromebook to manage your finances. 

     

    I had one 4-5 years ago & found it great for the vast majority of things (I.e. surfing the Internet) but Sheets is (or at least at that time was) no replacement for Excel have things gotten better?

     

    I've just done a quick search & it seems you can now run a limited version of Excel on Android, has anybody tried using this? 

     

    I guess another option would be to get an Office 365 subscription but like the OP, I begrudge paying a monthly subscription for software especially as I would only be using a small part of it. 

     

  13. 34 minutes ago, Captain Monday said:

    When you fly in and out of Thailand almost monthly?

    -Captain Monday
    ”Constant international travel”

     

     

    Pre-Covid, I used to fly SIN-BKK every other weekend so bought an annual pass with TLM (Thailand Long Stay Management) for 20K which gave me meet & greet service from Plane/Check-In through Fast Track immigration & as I never had check-in luggage it was a real timesaver for me, can't find the service listed on their Website anymore so can only assume they no longer offer it. 

     

    Before that I had also used "The Limo Pattaya" (IIRC 1,200B) but again, I can't find this service on offer on their Website anymore so can only assume that they've cracked down on companies offering Fast Track Services. 

     

     

     

     

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