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You might recall that the draft version of the new FBA (Foreign Business Act) was not passed by the National Legislative Assembly in August. The legislation was returned to the Ministry of Commerce, to make it even stricter. The meaning of Foreign Company will be expanded so that not only the equity but also the voting rights of the company shall be used in determining whether a company is foreign, but also the overall authority to control the company will also be considered. The flip side being that companies otherwise in violation of the Act, but doing business as Thai companies for greater than 10 years may be exempted from the new Act.

STEP 1 : OBTAINING A NON-IMMIGRANT " O" VISA If you want to retire in Thailand, you need a non-immigrant visa. Ideally, it should be acquired prior to your arrival in Thailand. Siam International Legal Group can assist you in obtaining it in your home country or in nearby country near Thailand. In addition, we can help you convert a tourist visa to non-immigrant visa inside Thailand but it can take up to 1 or 2 months for this conversion process. Requirements for getting a non-immigrant visa outside Thailand: 1. 50 years old of age or older 2. Passport (at least 1 year remaining until expiration) 3. Holding the nationality or permanent residence of country of application 4. Police Records Check 5. Certificate of Health 6. Proof of meeting financial requirement * 7. Bank letter showing funds or pension statement STEP 2 : OBTAINING ONE-YEAR RETIREMENT VISA IN THAILAND REQUIRED DOCUMENTS: 1. Passport - copies of every page. Each copy must be signed by applicant. 2. Non-Immigrant Visa 3. Departure Card TM.6 4. Proof of meeting financial requirement * 5. Thailand Bank book (original) 6. Letter from your Thai Bank 7. Medical Certificate (health exam administered by doctor at first class hospital) 8. Photos, three (3) in quantity which are 4 x 5 centimeters in size (not passport photos) with full face and taken wearing business attire (no hat and some jurisdictions require suit and tie). Must have been taken within six (6) months. * FINANCIAL REQUIREMENT: 1. BANK ACCOUNT SHOWING THB 800,000 2. MONTHLY INCOME OF AT LEAST THB 65,000 3. COMBINATION (BANK ACCOUNT + INCOME x 12 = THB 800,000) Signing for your new Retirement Visa Your first and only appearance for the retirement visa will be at the Immigration office upon its approval. You must appear in person with your passport and sign the visa paperwork in the presence of the Immigration staff. The Immigrant staff puts a stamp in the passport at the time of approval. Restrictions on Your Retirement Visa The retirement once approved allows you to stay in Thailand for one year. You are not allowed to have employment while on this type of visa. Also you must report to Immigration every 90 days to verify your current address. STEP 3 : BRINGING YOUR HOUSEHOLD ITEMS TO THAILAND You have six months from your entry to Thailand to bring in from your home country your household items. After you have been granted a permit to stay for a year in Thailand, your belongings will not be taxed. However, if your permit to stay is for less than one year, these items will be taxed 20% import duty plus 7% value-added tax. The period of six months starts the date that you initially entered Thailand on the retirement visa O-A visa, regardless whether you leave or re-enter Thailand after that date. However, the deadline is somewhat flexible. If your personal items are due to arrive in Thailand more than six months after the entry date, you should inform Customs about this at least two months before the six-month deadline. STEP 4 : OBTAINING THE RE-ENTRY PERMIT Definition: “Visa” is issued outside of Thailand by a Thai Embassy or Consulate in which you request entry into the Kingdom of Thailand. Once allowed to enter the Kingdom, the Immigration Officer will stamp a date in your passport. This is referred to as your “Extension of Stay.” Definition: “Extension of Stay” is the time period you are allowed to remain in the Kingdom of Thailand. This is typically the date stamp in your passport by the Immigration Officer either after arriving in the Kingdom through a border checkpoint or issuance by the Immigration Police after a request for an extension of stay. Many people misunderstand the difference between an extension of stay and re-entry permit much to their own disadvantage. Here is the key point: your “extension of stay” stamp is the controlling date. Everything is dependent on this date. Your re-entry permit is only valid until the date stamped in your passport to leave the country. Any re-entry permit you obtain will expire when your “extension of stay” expires. If you depart the country without a re-entry permit, your “extension of stay” is invalidated. This is the key distinction so after going through the process of getting a longer period of time for your “extension of stay” please ensure your have a re-entry before departing Thailand. Siam International Legal Group can assist you to obtain a single re-entry entry permit (one time use) or multiple re-entry permit (unlimited use). STEP 5: RENEWING YOUR RETIREMENT VISA Your Retirement Visa expires when your Extension of Stay does You will need to renew your stay in Thailand before your extension of stay expires. This can be done in Thailand. If you cannot obtain your extension inside Thailand, you will have to get a new non-immigrant visa from a Thai Embassy or Consulate abroad as explained above. Siam International Legal Group with its global presence can assist you in any country with renewing your visa. Reporting your Stay every 90 days You are required to report to Immigration Police every 90 days for persons on a long term extension of stay. Persons holding a multiple entry visa will simply depart Thailand and renew their extension of stay after each 90 day entry. Our firm offers professional service with a yearly package to perform the task of the reporting to Immigration each 90 days. http://www.siam-legal.com/Thailand_Service...-retirement.php

What is this the weekly FLB fight? Last week Casper and his crying friend, this week it is you lot! Who is next?

Depends on your probation conditions. Are you allowed to leave the country?

Depending on how long you stay, you might just as well buy them new. The cost difference is very small. Water heaters go brand new at about 2,500 Baht Fridges (Thai ones) 5,000 Baht VCR (Phillips) 2,000 Baht Second hand fridges tend to have gas problems and they need to be refilled. The overall costs justifies buying a new one. They also tend to show rust after about 5 years. IF all else fails just ask your next barfine where to buy the lot. They always know where to find things on the cheap.

Thanks!

Hi, I installed a Chinese P2P television program on my computer and when I installed it, it automatically installed a Google Chinese add on. I removed the Google addon but now I cannot use most of the keyboard. When I press the question mark key I get this _ When I press the plus key I get this ¿ How can I reset the keyboard_ Thanks

Priceless!

Smith Dharmasaroja, now that is a character worth listening too. During the late 90´s he warned the government about the real threat of a tsunami and they scoffed at the idea of an early warning system. Then it happened and it became I told you so. They then made him the head of the Committee of National Disaster Warning Administration. Bangkok is sinking, I have no illussions about it. We saw an advert at the begining of the year for property along the Chao Phraya River. It was dirt cheap. When my wife went to go and look she came back and said that she thinks in 10 years that house would need a boat and not a car. Looking at the canals near to where we stay, I can see each year during Monsoon season how high the canals go. 5 years ago you never had water lashing over the embankments onto people property, they do now.

Don't forget that Asians love paperwork. There is a form for everything.

Look on Thai Visa to get some ideas as to what interests you. I don't know what you like only you would. The other option is to look at sunbeltasia.com. Get an idea of what suits you. Lots of the businesses they list are dodgy in my view for starters.

It makes more sense if we can see what we are getting. http://speedtest.thaivisa.com/ Download Speed: 801 kbps (100.1 KB/sec transfer rate) Upload Speed: 397 kbps (49.6 KB/sec transfer rate) That is what I get on the True package of 700 Baht a month,

Visas would be your main concern from what I see.

Garry is correct. You have to speak Thai. I only know of one person who has one and it in my view is not worth the trouble.

Thai's don't know the difference and it only comes into play as Tom says when you apply for a vacancy at a farang organisation. They would know the difference. Thai's tend to look at your resume and check where you have taught. If you have brand name schools or a university on your resume, your doors open wide. They would be willing to negotiate. We use to call it the Mini Mart mentality. When they did not like a teacher for what ever reason, they would send them back and say, "No like, send new farang". In their heads Thailand is the utopia of teaching. You cannot beat that mentality. They think people are lining up to teach here when in reality they are scraping the bottom of the barrel. There is nobody for a number of reasons. The better work force to hit is when you would recruit people who are married to a Thai. They tend to have their heads better set than the blow in tourist wanting to teach for Nana money and booze. Some have closed certain programs. Remember these IEP (Intensive English Programs) are cash cows for many schools. They turn over a huge amount of money. With the shortage they turn to mainly Filipino teachers, but parents complain when they are paying big money and their kids speak with a Tagalog accent or mispronounce many of the words. You cannot justify the cost of the program and you feeding them what they view as second rate English. This is the primary reason why some schools expect the white faces to stand at the gate in the morning to greet the parents. They need to justify the fees they charge. As one parent once told me at a bilingual school when we went to collect a farang, that she thought that the fact that Thailand was "never" colonised has given them this false impression that they have succeeded where others had not. Yet, when looking back she notes that many of the colonised countries speak good English compared to Thai's and more of their citizens work abroad. She was referring to Filipino's and the Indian's. I asked her about the difference between the Western and the Asian teachers. She remarked that she sent her daughter to a school, and was paying 7k per month in fees. They had a Pitstop garage and sold tires for a living. The fees were expensive to them but she wanted the child to learn more than English. She wanted her daughter to learn a different way of thinking. There was no point in speaking English when you could not understand Western culture or norms because you would ultimately have to deal with farangs in business. You learn Thai at home. You come to do business in Thailand. You think you make money? No she said, because you don't understand how Thai people think or how they do business even when you speak Thai. Same English. The middle class view in Thailand is changing! Some government schools tried to substitute Thai teachers to teach English but according to the last Thai Government English Proficiency Exam, 70% of the English Thai teachers failed their English exams. Some scoring 2 out of 100. They are suppose to be the government school English teachers. It is not as if there is no money. Outside of the school subsidy based on a per head count of the students, the 'better" schools also get a 35,000 Baht a month budget to hire a farang teacher. What they do is to try and hire a Filipino and cream the budget as they pay them 10-15,000 a month. I have a friend from the UK who was asked by his daughters school to come and teach full time. When he asked them how much they told him 15K a month. He asked what about the other money as he knows how much the government gives, they said that the director has "other" expenses to pay. The system is broken and what the government puts in, does not always reach the ground. As for the bilingual schools, middle class Thai's want value for their money now however they have bucked the system for so long, it might takes years to repair. You are correct, however the middle class also knows that there is far better prospects when you can get a handle on English. Thai's are not that stupid, that they do not realise that their degrees are essentially worthless (considering their no fail policies in education) and you will always note, that those with the money will always get a further degree at a Western university. In order to do that, you would need to speak some form of English. It is a slow change, but a change!

So you have taught in Thailand then? They pay the worst. I will give you an example. Regular teacher 30K per month. Director 120k per month Its a base income. Most guys I know in Bangkok have private students at 300 Baht per hour each. One guy I know opened a language school in that way. He rakes in just over 100k per month just from weekends. I don't think you know much about the circuit outside of what one person is telling you. I have a friend who runs a recruitment agency. Over the past year his business went down and he closed up shop. There is a shortage of teachers. There has been a shortage for the past 3 years. You see this is the part that I find funny. Touristman said "My concerns are the scum who currently do it that are unqualified.My take is that these talentless scum don't just drive down salaries, but drive down the quality of education to Thai youth also." The point is that if you treat people like shit and pay what is essentially less money than what most basic Chinese schools are paying then what do you expect? There is no real market economy in the teaching game. Even over the 3 year shortage, the salary levels have remained the same. Demand and supply does not always factor into the Thai mentality. I concur.

1. Not with political instability; 2. Not with Southern violence coming North; 3. Not with laws barring foreign ownership/control; There is a spirit of nationalism running right now. look at how they view large companies such as Tesco who they now claim are closing off many "mom and pop" stores. Of course they will not say that it is 7-11 killing off the stores because 7-11 is Thai owned.

Nothing stops you from making it "Spicy Boys a Go Go"?

For a GoGo at 2,000 Baht a pop.

If you have a B.Ed degree there are two international schools in and around Rayong which pay well. The starting salaries are 80,000 Baht a month, up to 120K. Those "international" schools in Pattaya pay crap money -- 25,000 Baht a month.

My question too.

The numbers you are tossing around means little without knowing how many people are sucking on the same line. What you get when you buy a package depends on where you live. With the current 1024/ 512 package from True I get download rates of 90-120kb/s. That is in Bangkok. This is downloading one of the video off from this website. This is on the 599 Baht a month package.

I had a friend who use to receive his skin cancer treatment at the "Queens Hospital" (Queen Savang Vadhana Memorial Hospital ) in Sriracha . Very cheap and from what I saw a hell of a lot better than BPH. It might not be a fancy but they treat you much better.

I would go with BigD and side with Malaysia.

Is it is boiler room? Flips making sales calls....I don't see that.