@Floyd *****

It’s neither the US nor Thai. It’s a clueless agency. Find another agency. They are happy to grab a substantial chunk of your money.

Probably they just needed an excuse to deny you. I had a similar nonsense excuse trying to get PA insurance at SCB.

I went online and arranged AXA within minutes. No problems, no greedy agents inbetween.

@Matts ************

Exactly. Book a hotel room for 30 days or so. Get them to provide a TM30. Go to immi to get the residence certificate, fix the bank problem and cancel the remaining hotel reservation.

Done.

Life goes on.

@Brian ****

They tend to use such tactics to discourage marriage visa. Retirement is much smoother. After last year’s experience I decided to change this year.

Did mine yesterday. One hour in and out, even when the lady was a bit grumpy…

We were asked photos on the bed, so we added a picture of us standing on the bed. The lady didn’t appreciate the joke. 🤣

We had added all the required pictures including us sitting on the bed, so she removed the joke and accepted the other pictures.

@Roberto ********

Those undertaking cooking classes can still be tax resident. Whether or not that results in having to pay tax is an entirely different matter.

@Roberto ********

The dta defines taxable income and location of the taxability.

But I’ll gladly get educated. Which dta and which article?

@Eamonn ******

Yeah. Sort for assistance in hyjacking the topic. 🤭

@Roberto ********

Then you have misread. The Thai tax code doesn’t care whether you are tourist or pregnant woman or illegal alien or whatever.

When you are 180 days or more within a calendar year in Thailand, you are tax resident. Period.

My generic, non-personal comment:

I honestly don’t understand the fear of becoming tax resident.

Most expats are protected by DTAs , deductibles and offsets of foreign paid tax.

Should you get a tax liability because you have 2 mln baht income then what’s wrong with donating some of that to the country where you live when the average income is only 200,000 baht?

Are we really all that self-centered egoistic pricks?

Before people start swearing at me and insulting me, which seems to be fashionable among some “people”, I have to add I am definitely not a socialist or anything left-wing.

Unfortunately I pay tax in my country of origin where my income is about the average income. I’d love to move my tax liability to Thailand. It’s where I live, where I breathe and where I booze and party.