Owen`

If one is doing a move, and one doesn't want to ante up $10,000 to have a lot of stuff shipped, it would seem that baggage limits on airlines could allow on to incrementally move one's stuff to Pattaya over a period of several trips. Not furniture, of course. Just an accumulation of books and other things. But . . . an obstacle is the issue of self storage facilities in Pattaya. Anyone know of any and price tags?

FYI, for the US, ehealthinsurance.com is an interesting site at which you can get educated. I'm surprised such limited coverege in Thailand is still over $1000/yr. I suppose the reason why is the low deductible. Is there any drug benefit in those BUPA plans? Heads up, Brits. This stuff is not what you're accustomed to. You have to recalibrate your brains. You're used to a lifetime of paying no attention to it because the UK was doing it for you. Not in Thailand.

English language usage confusion. "Property" usually denotes some land under the house. That's what you can't do beyond 49%. A condo is an easier goal.

I've looked into this, but I am not an expert. The Expats club have experts, if you can reach them. 1) A foreigner can not overtly own "property" in Thailand beyond 49%. 2) A foreigner can own a condo, just not "property", but apparently a condo complex must be 51% Thai or even this doesn't work. 3) There are ways around this 49% rule that involve setting up a corporation. It is complex, but apparently doable and many have done it. It requires a lawyer who is skilled in the matter. 4) Owning "property" will change your Pattaya budget. You will live a significant distance from things. It probably will mean owning a car and learning all the associated car regulations and paying the associated car taxes. It also changes security considerations. There is no condo complex security to provide even the thinnest of deterrents to robbers. When stuff breaks, you have to learn all the local tricks of dealing with repair people and you must do this without the language. 5) You can, indeed, extract money from Thailand if you own property and sell it later. Repeat, I am not expert at this stuff and there are many details in each of those five items that require lots of study. Others probably have more info. Those are the items that have caught my attention as I have gathered info for myself. If anyone sees errors in those 5, please yell.

One would think the key question is will Blue Cross/Blue Shield cover medical services performed in Thailand, and part of this question is . . . are the premiums adjusted downward to reflect the lower service costs in Thailand?

Competition is a good thing. And anyone new to a business is not going to have recommendations and has to build those up incrementally. Also, this guy toom does need to learn the process and provide more data, but that also is part of a new business -- learning the clientelle's wishes. Paul and Jan, (aka board member LostinSpace) have been running their transport service for several months. I used it in November and it was first class in all sorts of ways. It is more than 1200 baht, but it was worth the extra for me from the perspective of security and hyper convenient logistics. There are other testimonials on their behalf in the relevant thread: http://www.pattayatalk.com/forums/index.ph...pic=18044&st=75 Full disclosure: I have no financial interest in Paul and Jan's business. I was pleased with the service I got from them. I got no other reason for speaking up. This is somewhat toom's thread so I will not hijack it. Competition is a good thing. It forces everyone to be better. toom, you may want to go thru your competitor's thread to see if there are things you can improve on your own service, and perhaps over your competitor's.

While there are bugs there you don't encounter in your normal life and therefore have little immunity to, they would not explain what you are enduring. I travel a great deal. I have seen things like this before with other people. It is very much like the guy who plays blackjack and a certain card combination occurs and he acts a particular way when it does, saying "I always hit when I have a 6-7 and the dealer has a 6." Well, the reply to that guy is "do you win more often than you lose?" Point being, habits can form that aren't clearly bad without careful analysis. From your description I'd have to suggest you're doing something wrong. There is some habit on your trips that you are doing that you think is meaningless and it isn't. Maybe you have a favorite hotel and a favorite room in it (that happens to have Legionnaires disease in the air con filters). Maybe you have a favorite restaurant that you always go to early in a trip (that infects you with something ugly). Could be anything. Maybe you can deduce it.

Critical data. If the baht bus doesn't go there, you are trapped. Of course, once the place fills up, maybe the bus routes change, but it sounds like being the first there isn't wise.

Torrenova is there and knows what's what. If you're gonna buy, you gotta think growth. If it's the middle of nowhere now, that means it's cheap. Will it still be middle of nowhere in 5 yrs? Shrug. I guess if it's middle of nowhere, and traffic is getting denser, not thinner, it will never take less time to get . . . somewhere.

Conde Nast Traveler magazine has an article this month about bank fees associated with overseas transactions. It is piracy. If you can get a copy, read it. The fees added on by banks in the US to transactions overseas are obscene. There are a few maneuvers available to minimize them, but most involve doing research and shifting to a favorable bank. There may be no choice. The fees are so ridiculous and so camouflaged that if you don't do the work you are stolen from and don't know it.

A few years ago there was talk of melatonin pills as a treatment. There's nothing really to "cure", but the pills could be used to accelerate the re-adjustment. FYI to the Brits, LOS is 12 hrs time difference to the eastern time zone of the US. That's the maximum possible on the planet. I think you folks have fewer hours of adjustment. I live in the mountain time zone of the US, which is one time zone east of the Pacific coast. My enroute time to LOS is 24 hrs, from my home to BKK, and tack on another few hours for the ride to Pattaya. First or Business class seats across the Pacific fill up. I would be willing to pay to be able to lay down and get a few hours sleep, but there are often no empty seats. That, gentlemen, is devastating. 12 hrs of jet lag plus 24+ hours of no sleep to begin with is a formula for misery. The only treatment I've read about that is not fad or outright bogus is the sun. The mechanism reseting your body's clock is bright light in your eyes. If it's a cloudy day(s) when you arrive in either direction, you have to do something about this or it can go on for weeks. Get outside and see the sun. If you can't see the sun, stare at bright lights during the day.

Hope it works out. As for visa runs, I was alluding to the reality that what we call "daytrading" in the US might be called "working" in Thailand. Might require different kind of visa. Shrug.

The thread makes pretty clear that this is not a casual, low intensity thing. There are no short cuts. You have to get yourself fully configured to make your claim beyond reproach. Assume you will be challenged, because the odds are pretty good you will be. If you leave a taxed state and they send you your annual income tax form and you don't file, the state is going to cross reference your federal return to find out why they didn't get money from you. When they see your new address is a PO Box in a zero tax state, do you really think they have not encountered this before? Make life easy for yourself. Move To A Zero Tax State At Least Briefly. Do it like you mean it. Go through the hassle. It won't cost much. It just will consume your time. Rent something cheap for a few months. Change everything you have to the new state. Drivers license. Library card. Voters registration. And SaTeef's truly powerful idea above . . . get a resident's hunting or fishing license using your local address. You want to really play it safe? Get a part time job for a few weeks or months, too. Once that state is your LAST state of residence before moving to LOS you're in good shape. The rental lease of 3 mos can expire. Your drivers' license can expire. The library card can expire. The fishing license can expire. Have your mail forwarding service be based in that state. Keep voting in that state by absentee. Keep a copy of the expired stuff. You will clearly be an expatriate whose last state of residence before moving to LOS was a no tax state. Why are you doing this hassle? Because if you have income of . . . say . . . $50K from whatever source that you want to live on for 20 years, and you're from a taxing state that grabs about 7%, you are chopping, in addition to federal tax, $3500 per year for 20 yrs out of your life (and that ignores inflation). That's $70K you're paying for state services at your old state that you will NEVER benefit from. Is it a hassle. Yes. Is it worth it. Almost certainly.

I'll probably regret this, but what the hell. 1) Sounds like your plan is to be up all night 5 nights a week working, when the bars are open. Unless you are going to trade the Asian markets. 2) Trading for a living -- still equates to investment return norms. If you get 10% on your money, you are doing so with a lot of risk that may translate into loss, not 10% gain. "Trading" is still investing and the standard numbers still apply. If a "living" requires you to get 20% on your money each year, you odds are not good. 3) Will Thai law call this "working"? If so, does this mean you need a work visa?

This caught my attention for a number of reasons, but the most prominent is one of surprise. At age 40, aren't guys still thinking in terms of accomplishment? Not that one cannot continue to accomplish things in "retirement', but I'm wondering just what the mindset is at age 40 for such things. I haven't been 40 for a while, and I do recall that when I was 40 I was counting money and projecting it with the intent to "change careers" ASAP, but I did not equate that to "retirement". What's the thinking on this?

Wyoming and fishing do go hand in hand and the fishing license ploy looks excellent to me. Never thought of it. Probably true of the other zero tax states too. Hunting or fishing licenses would be solid legal rebuttal to any challenge. The zero tax states are . . . WY, AK, NV, TX, FL, SD, WA http://taxes.yahoo.com/statereport.html TN is often mentioned as one too, but that only applies to earned income, not passive. Ditto NH. Your investment income will be taxed in either. FYI, for military folks, everyone knows the maneuver in the military. You join and you pay taxes in your original state of residency wherever you are assigned. BUT. If you are ever stationed in one of the zero tax states above, you can change your residency to that state and vote in it etc. Then if you are transferred again, you can retain that state (zero tax) of residency for tax purposes the rest of your military career. This is why military folks try to get an assignment in one of those states early in their career, as soon as they are briefed on this. They then hold onto that state until retirement.

The gentleman above who spoke of jury duty . . . that one is worrisome. Research required. But . . . let's think carefully here. We do not need to be a resident of the state. The drivers license can expire, the library card never used, etc. The idea is to have the zero income tax state be the LAST state of residence. You don't live there anymore and they won't object to you not living there anymore. It doesn't have to be your state of residence. You just need to have lived there for some period of time (or pretended to) so that it becomes your LAST state of residence. Now that I think about this, it probably addresses the jury duty question. You reside outside the country. You are no longer a resident of that state. It was your last state of residence, but is no longer your residence. I think that does the trick of insulating from other states' taxes.

Bill, Be kind enough to keep a journal on the process. Your experiences will be valuable. Best of luck on the move. Let's all hope it goes smoothly.

Bud, Your investigations sound thorough, but I am astonished at the response you got from Arizona. As a matter of principle, no revenue department will give you any favorable answer to a gray area. At first glance I am surprised that they told you that interest on an Arizona bank account will not be Arizona state taxed. At second glance, maybe this is not suprising. After all, our stock and mutual fund portfolios are held by companies very unlikely to be our state of residence. For example, if you hold Fidelity funds and they generate capital gains and interest, and you don't live in Massachussets (Fidelity's home), you don't pay MA state tax on those earnings. So excellent data -- though it is surprising Arizona told you that -- and yes, even if that's their rule it could change. I think what goes on here is that when someone moves from one state to another, it can be called "permenant" and the old state doesn't tax your income anymore. The new state does. Moving overseas and retaining property in the current state of residence simply does not look permenant to most states and since the people interpreting the rules are paid out of your taxes, it's in their interest to say that you must keep paying those taxes because that property suggests the move it not permanent and you are coming back. The Nevada mail forwarding service I looked into and my investigation says it is not enough. You need to change your drivers license and get a library card and maybe even register to vote. These actions take time but do not take much money. Leasing a trailer in a trailer park for $2000 per year or something would settle the issue, but it's possible this won't be necessary. The drivers license, library card and voter registration plus spending a few weeks there looks a lot better to any challenge than just a mail forwarding service. Point being, this issue is not new and the revenue people know the game we're playing, so we have to play it well or face approx 5% loss of our income each year.

She has a non sex related job, cooks for you, does the laundry and cleans the place . . . and you pay her nothing? I can't see that, but I have not lived in Thailand and maybe the women are that willing to devote themselves that much to their man. I would suspect, rather, that she cooks for you, does the laundry and cleans the place. . . . . and sleeps there, with you, getting free room and board, and you give her money for the grocery shopping -- perhaps 500 baht for a 350 baht expense -- and she keeps the change, and you give her spending money to augment her job when she's low from sending money north, which will be every month. Is she a prostitute? Nah, she's a gf, and a helluva lot better a gf than you'll find in farangland. The second one you described . . . she's a roomate you boink now and then. She happens to be a prostitute, too. We're afield here, though. The threads on how much a live-in costs are elsewhere.

Always interesting to me to read the UK money threads. Similarities and differences to the US. Both similarities and differences tend to be surprising. My 2 cents: 1) Everyone's impression of how good an idea is for investment, specifically rental real estate, derives from their own personal database. Did you try it in the past and hit it big? Did you try it in the past and have your tenants destroy the place and then leave without paying? In the US, anyway, there is NO central database clearing house on rental real estate success statistics. There is no way to assess probabilities on this. 2) If you are trying to stretch a lump sum of money 30 yrs, you probably can't spend more than 4-5% per year of it in the first year, increasing that amount by inflation each year, and have it survive the 30 yrs. The operative word in that is "probably". The calculation is based on history, which may not repeat. 3) With regard to 2) . . . it is just as bad to under spend as overspend. You may think it would be bad to find yourself age 72 and flat broke with some government poverty program feeding you until you die. But would this be truly worse than to look in the mirror and see a man 85 yrs old with $8 million in assets? What do you say to him? "Sorry, miscalculated, won't happen again"? That's about 20-30 yrs of partying you could have done and didn't. 4) You UK guys, I know you have national health care, but is that true outside the UK? If not and you have to buy insurance, will the UK reimburse you? The US has national health care, but it doesn't trigger until age 65 (it's called Medicare). Unfortunately it will not send money outside the US. I am mentioning this because pretty much all retirement scenarios lean very heavily on some medical expense estimate. Inflation on medical costs runs about 3X the overall rate.

Pretty sure everyone knows this, for the Americans at least, but giving stuff away, if done properly, is tax deductible. Dunno about the UK.

Well, yeah. Personally, I've reached inner peace with my reasons for thinking of Pattaya as a retirement residence. The line between gf and prostitute is blurred a great deal by how the formula works in Pattaya. Think about all the guys that talk about their "live in". What exactly does that mean? Is she a gf or a prostitute? Who hasn't given a gf money in the course of their lives? Want to make it even more clear? Would you give money to a "gf" with whom you had not yet slept?

Good answers, gentlemen. I had a bit of concern that the question was stupid and trivial. Clearly not. Decades of life equate to collected stuff. Lots of things to sort out, clearly. For Americans, the issue of residency is pretty big for tax reasons so the details have to be investigated. The guy who said he was UA Executive premiere . . . that is great data. I am Delta Gold Medallion and I'll hit million miler status in a few months. Delta doesn't do much Asia (yet), but they are Skyteam and Northwest does. I had forgotten this may impact baggage allowance and can be taken advantage of. I fly mostly first class nowadays anyway, though my last BKK run had FC full when I booked and I had to endure the agony of 25 hrs with no sleep. The common item of info maybe extractable from all your comments is that the move is incremental. All of you were making multiple trips and moving stuff over in batches. That's important. Did y'all have a place lined up by maybe . . . your second trip and therefore that is where you stored stuff when you went back "home" before the next incremental trip? Or are there rentable storage bins in Pattaya or BKK? I guess I'll aim at March or May for my next and dedicate some days to a condo search. I was there in April last year. Songkran is insane.

Those who made the move. Some questions: What did you carry with you? Did you ship any furniture? How many clothes? What was left behind? Is the norm to put stuff in storage on the presumption of returning at some point, even if the thinking is "permanent"? Or is the norm to just donate a few decades of material goods to a charity? If you had stuff shipped, what did that cost?