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Update: New Thai immigration rules for income!


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It will still be allowed. 
I hope so but I'm confused. Lets say your dollar income is 1500 usd monthly. So you transfer that in monthly and the baht amount will be different each time. So what they do? Add up 12 unique baht transfers and then that would be the basis to figure the needed Thai bank account balance?
Or something else?
Would they require the baht amount to be the same each time?
What if you had a glitch and missed a month so next month you transfer in two months?
It seems to me that people will be taking risk using that method compared to the money in the bank method if immigration as they tend to do lacks flexibility.

Sent from my Lenovo A7020a48 using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app

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26 minutes ago, KhunFred said:

That certainly sounds optimistic, if those are the requirements. They appear to understand that the situation they have created is untenable without some compromise.

 

I don't see any compromise there... What kind are you seeing?

 

If true, monthly income will only be 12 monthly deposits into a Thai bank account and nothing else.

 

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30 minutes ago, Jingthing said:

I hope so but I'm confused. Lets say your dollar income is 1500 usd monthly. So you transfer that in monthly and the baht amount will be different each time. So what they do? Add up 12 unique baht transfers and then that would be the basis to figure the needed Thai bank account balance?
Or something else?
Would they require the baht amount to be the same each time?
What if you had a glitch and missed a month so next month you transfer in two months?
It seems to me that people will be taking risk using that method compared to the money in the bank method if immigration as they tend to do lacks flexibility.

Sent from my Lenovo A7020a48 using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app
 

It may and note I say 'May' either have to arrive as Thai baht (Your foreign bank does the conversion and sends baht) or you are going to have too make sure and send a fair bit over the top in order to cover the fluctuating T/T rate of Bangkok bank. Quite honestly, other than the funds arriving here as baht, it doesn't seem workable.

Edited by Lovethailandelite
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36 minutes ago, Jingthing said:

I hope so but I'm confused. Lets say your dollar income is 1500 usd monthly. So you transfer that in monthly and the baht amount will be different each time. So what they do? Add up 12 unique baht transfers and then that would be the basis to figure the needed Thai bank account balance?
Or something else?
Would they require the baht amount to be the same each time?
What if you had a glitch and missed a month so next month you transfer in two months?
It seems to me that people will be taking risk using that method compared to the money in the bank method if immigration as they tend to do lacks flexibility.

It would be a total income for a year since the income would vary due to exchange rate fluctuations using the bank book or a statement. Not sure about missing a month and making up for the missing one by doubling the amount.

There is no way they could expect the baht amount to be the same every month due to exchange rate fluctuations.

Since I recall you mentioning SS payments before the best way would be to have it direct deposited to your account so there would never be a month missed,

I have my SS payments direct deposited to my Bangkok bank account and have a 6 month statement printed to a PDF file using online banking that includes has a sum of the 6 months credited to my account. I can then do one for a another 6 months when my extension is due. All of them show well more than the 40k baht I need for my extension based upon marriage.

 

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10 minutes ago, ubonjoe said:

It would be a total income for a year since the income would vary due to exchange rate fluctuations using the bank book or a statement. Not sure about missing a month and making up for the missing one by doubling the amount.

There is no way they could expect the baht amount to be the same every month due to exchange rate fluctuations.

Since I recall you mentioning SS payments before the best way would be to have it direct deposited to your account so there would never be a month missed,

I have my SS payments direct deposited to my Bangkok bank account and have a 6 month statement printed to a PDF file using online banking that includes has a sum of the 6 months credited to my account. I can then do one for a another 6 months when my extension is due. All of them show well more than the 40k baht I need for my extension based upon marriage.

 

I would never have my Social security payments or any other income direct deposited into a Thai bank.  I have seen enough issues with US banks, I would not want to get in the middle of using a Thai bank. I maintain a US presence and US financial institutions and will always continue to do so.  I understand why many do it, and I understand the pros and cons.  To each their own.

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55 minutes ago, GinBoy2 said:

Now it's official

It's not official (yet), currently it's only hearsay

 

55 minutes ago, GinBoy2 said:

They (Thai Immigration) want you to do the money in the bank thing. It's easy, not a lot of effort required, everyone is happy.

I don't see how the immigration officers are happy.

 

Before people who wanted to use the income method - without actually having the income - had to choose between either paying an agent or committing a crime (stating a wrong income on the income affidavit), for which you go to jail in some countries (for example US) if you are caught. So i assume there were quite some people who were scared of the jail and decided to pay an agent.

But if now the income requirement is just to have 65k coming into your bank account each month you can in theory just send the whole amount back and forth between your Thai and your home country bank account and you are in compliance with the rules.

 

Sending the whole amount would of course only be relevant for people who work here illegally, so let's look at the case which is way more common, somebody has an income, but not 65k:

If you have let's say 40k income per month which you transfer anyway and you transfer an additional 25k back and forth to reach 65k, this costs a few hundred THB extra per month, let's say 5000THB per year.

So if somebody does this he is compliant with the rules and (what does an "agent" cost? 20k?) he saves let's say 15k per year for the agent.

 

I could imagine that many of these people for whom the saving on the agent fee is nearly half a month's pension will now switch to sending some extra money back and forth, thus the immigration officers get less money from agents, are of course not happy about this and will come up with rules which try to eliminate this.

Edited by jackdd
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6 minutes ago, mngmn said:

Check out Transferwise's Borderless Account. It solves many of the problems discussed here especially the problem of transferring exactly 65k baht each month.

 

Fees are low as well.

I recommend you watch this video to understand how Transferwise works, then you will understand that you can't use Transferwise if it has to be a transfer from abroad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLKKzRvOsLQ&feature=youtu.be&t=45

 

 

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2 hours ago, Jingthing said:

I hope so but I'm confused. Lets say your dollar income is 1500 usd monthly. So you transfer that in monthly and the baht amount will be different each time. So what they do? Add up 12 unique baht transfers and then that would be the basis to figure the needed Thai bank account balance?
Or something else?
Would they require the baht amount to be the same each time?

I would guess they would require the amount to be over 65K Baht/mo every time.  Those who cut it too close will get nailed by a currency-fluctuation, and become another agent-customer.

 

2 hours ago, Jingthing said:

What if you had a glitch and missed a month so next month you transfer in two months?

Unless you have an honorable IO, you become another agent-customer - or have to leave.  

If not transferring benefits directly, best to set up a recurring xfer with your passport-country bank.  Don't give them any rope to hang you with.

 

2 hours ago, Jingthing said:

It seems to me that people will be taking risk using that method compared to the money in the bank method if immigration as they tend to do lacks flexibility.

They'll get around to making the bank-method difficult to do w/o an agent, eventually.  Maybe add an "approval" period and then, like they are doing in some offices for marriage-based now, prevent using the bank-money during that time - effectively adding another "seasoning" month.  Then up the minimums, add insurance, etc 

 

But at least for a little while, they should be rolling in under-the-table dough, and hopefully too busy spending it to think up more ways to make honest applications more difficult.

 

1 hour ago, Jingthing said:

Will they keep accepting embassy letters from nationals that can still get them? I'm not talking about the six month thing. I'm asking if they intend to phase out acceptance of embassy letters entirely? 

If they can knock out the Canadians' letters, that should generate another windfall, given high numbers here.  But I'm not sure what the Canadian embassy's procedure is; if they actually check with all the sources that the amounts are correct, they might not be able to disqualify those. 

 

OTOH, given new rules are being made (and officially published rules, at that), they might just scrap the embassy-letter routine entirely.

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