@John *******

Hey mate, I spoke to my Tax accountant yesterday and he said that as long as you stay a resident of Australia you will be ok, apparently all i have to do is maintain a bank account in Australia or keep your Medicare account active ( don't close it before I leave to live in Thailand ) then the new rules will not apply to you, apparently as long as you don't become a Non resident you are fine, you just have to have the intention to return to live in Australia sometime in the future, could be 20 or 30 years , it doesn't matter, just the intention, I will check further into it 🙏😊

@Rob *********

Cheers Rob, thanks for that, as you can see i am a bit of a dinosaur with this type of thing, but with your help I am learning, I can't thank you enough for your help, 🙏👍

Thanks Jason, just a question, the rate in Australia is always quite low compared to the Wise exchange rate, do I get a good rate at the Bangkok bank if I do it your way, Cheers 🙏😊

Thanks everyone for the discussion, all comments provided valuable information, I am extremely happy with the outcome, I will chase up the tax laws and post the answer, it seems Wise is the winner here🙏👍😊

@Jim *********

i just checked and I don't think it applies to pensioners living overseas, I will follow it up and let you know 😊

@John *******

Thanks , I have Smartway, and every time I do a transfer with Wise I check the rates with smartway first, they sadly so far don't compare , I seem to lose about 4000THB on each transaction 🙏

@Scott ******

Thanks, that is exactly why I asked, on $5000AUD , Australian banks vs Wise, I received 5200THB more with Wise

@Tony ******

yea Tony, a bit hard to do that, they tell me it changes every day and won't commit to a rate, so I did this to see if a pensioner out there had done the sums because on $5000 AUD Westpac transfer vs Wise transfer , Wise gave me 5200THB more each time🙏😊

@Rob *********

thanks mate, that fully answers my question, I am currently transferring $5000 a fortnight via wise for the 800k non 0 Visa to my Bangkok bank account, the rates are awesome compared to Westpac, and wanted to know if the reserve bank gave a decent rate when they pay my pension directly into my Bangkok bank account or should I do it myself through wise, 🙏👍

@Bob *********

that was the reason I asked, I am currently transferring 800kTHB for retirement in $5000 segments every fortnight and the exchange rate using wise is far superior to Bank to Bank( Westpac) and hoped an Australian pensioner might be able to shed some light on whether Centrelink get decent rates, 🙏👍