IF you are ever accused of a crime, you want to have the same connections that the FATman has! Remember the FATman? This is the head of the Football Association of Thailand who I wrote about a couple of issues ago. The man, I think, was blatantly criminal in his abuse of both FIFA donated funds and tax revenues and kind that were to be allocated for football but somehow never quite made it to that intended goal (goal - double entendre - get it? Who says you can't pun your way through a tax article??!)

On 26 June, Alan Dawson of the Bangkok Post reported that Warawi Makudi, the defendant head of the Football Association of Thailand lost his case and was sentenced to 16 months in prison. BUT the prison sentence was suspended by the judge so Mr. Warawi is free although he claims he is mad as hell because freedom isn't sufficient - he's challenging the whole ball of wax because he does not want a conviction on his record. Be sure to come back a couple of issues from now because I think this will develop into a never ending story - just like India's GST!

The farmers have excessive debt. Where? Everywhere! But insofar as Thailand goes, General Prayut Chan-o-cha, the junta's ruling prime minister 'expressed alarm' at this excessive Thai burden. The Interior Ministry published a study of 1,637,562 farmers and their 388,361 billion baht worth of loans, an average of 237,158 baht per loan. Proportionately for Thailand, this weighs in far more than the student loan crisis simmering in the U.S. where the debtors are not working in the jobs that come anywhere close to enabling them to repay their debt. In his weekly televised address, on Friday night, 31 July, Prayut stated that the government would take action to prevent farmers from losing their land - in particular the most needy 93,000 farms. Gee, what happens if you are # 93,001 - your problems still exist but the government doesn't care about you?? Frankly, I am as skeptical as you get in this situation. I think Prayut is talking a good line but I wonder how many farmers will be helped because of his alarm. This has always been a problem and there is no reason to assume that Prayut will be able to resolve that which his predecessors of the past half century have been incapable of resolving.

As long as we're discussing Thailand, Thai Customs wants all incoming travellers to know that because of the ongoing devaluation of the baht vis a vis the dollar, they can come to Thailand and bring gifts, souvenirs and high priced branded products to Thailand tax free, if valued at under 20,000 baht. This is double the old limit. Did anyone ever realize there was an old limit? Does anyone bring gifts to Thailand? Gee, I thought the government wanted people to bring cash and buy gifts from Thailand! Now we all know there are restrictions on bringing in bottles of booze and cigarettes. This is seemingly something that is now universal. But does Thailand Customs check anyone coming to the country to verify what they are bringing in? Doesn't the country prefer that its visitors bring more cash so they can spend more?

Technically, if goods brought in are higher than the 20,000 baht value, they can be seized by customs if they have not been declared. I've never heard of anything remotely close to this happening to anyone I've heard about in over 20 years of travel to Thailand. Still, if both the Post and Nation report this as they did on 15 July, it must be worthy of coverage.....and yet.....

O.K.Time to go north again. This is enough about Thailand and Thai tax for this article - let's spend a little time back in China.....On 24 July, Qiu Baoxing, past vice-minister of housing and urban-rural development proposed that Guangzhou should follow the London example and tax car users based upon where they travel and at what times they hit the roads. Frankly I think it is a great idea - especially since I don't own a car and haven't owned one in close to a quarter of a century, while living in China. But if I were a government official proposing this in China, I wouldn't be staying much longer in office as this suggestion to curtail grid lock is not acceptable to the masses who've purchased cars and simply want to use them, regardless of the fact that for all intents and purposes, the roads they travel, when the travel them, turn into veritable parking lots. The taxi wars is also a substantial factor contributing to the recent surge in traffic in Guangzhou. I have absolutely no idea where all those Uber and Didi Kuaidi cars came from - certainly not from Guangzhou but the roads are worse than they've ever been. I travel frequently by bus and I now have to leave home earlier because of traffic conditions. I yearn for the simpler things in life - 25 years ago, when I first got to China, I took pride in being able to sit on a bicycle and keep it balanced at a traffic light where I'd be along with the masses of other bicycle riders. Now bicycles are banned from the very roads where they are so sorely needed. Is that what they call progress?

On 28 July, China Daily wrote a 'progress report' for the three new FTZs of Tianjin, Fujian and Guangdong. These are now given equal billing with the pilot Shanghai Free Trade Zone that has been expanded in size to closer approximate the area the other three FTZs have to work with. Through mid-July a total of 19,470 firms signed contractual obligations to set up on these three zones where goods can be imported, processed and re-exported without the bureaucratic snafus and tax traps that companies seemingly fall into, otherwise. There's a lot of potential - otherwise why would 19,470 firms do what they did. The proof of time will weigh heavily, though because getting a license to set up shop and spending the money to actually follow through with the set up are often worlds apart. And yet.....these firms understand that the cost of being prepared to jump into the action once it develops is certainly a low price to pay - getting a license is cheap - how many of those licenses are going to be renewed once they are ready to expire - that's the really big question and it'll obviously remain unanswered for some time to come.

Here we are in August and the first blockbuster announcement coming from the State Council, this month, deals with healthcare and expenditures to come from the monthly medical insurance tax payments all employees and employers are responsible for making. On Sunday, 2 August, the State Council announced that by the end of the year, medical insurance coverage will extend to ALL critical illnesses for all urban and rural residents, with 50 percent of critical illness patient costs to be covered.

Perhaps there is more cynic in me than there should be because rather than a first, very laudable response to this - and yes, this is significant and should be praised, all I can think of is who determines whether it is critical or not. And yet, that is not a problem in either Guangzhou or Shenzhen where 'experiments in health care coverage/expenses' have been taking place. In Guangzhou, since September, 2014, 50 percent reimbursement has been smoothly in operation (pun on word intended!) and if costs are excessive, then the government will reimburse up to 70 percent. It gets even better in Shenzhen where since 2013 a medical insurance reimbursement program has been covering 80 percent of critical illness-related costs - and the municipal government has stated that its goal is to bring this total to 90 percent reimbursement. Since 2009, central government reform expenditures for medical care have totalled close to 3 trillion RMB. It is only more recent that 20-25 percent of wages started being mandatorily part of wages but was not yet (until now) put into a more tangible, outreaching program. Since the past year or two, crackdowns on medical corruption have reached down to the local level with doctors at the local hospital I go to feeling the impact of punishment. Medicine by red envelope still prevails and will for a long time to come but no one is getting away with some blatantly corrupt procedures of past and the announcement of spending some tax revenue in expanding health care coverage will most certainly blunt the damage of the tremendous stock market crash that seemingly has impacted more of the masses than I think the central government feels comfortable about.