OPINION

Self-selecting!

Re: "Clarity on Senate poll rules expected today", (BP, June 7 ).

On a recent Sunday morning in the province of Nan, 98 intrepid citizens over the age of 40 began their self-selecting quest to become members of the new 200-seat Senate. They have each paid 2,500 baht, about seven times the daily minimum wage, to register in one of 20 professional or identity groups in one of the 15 districts comprising Nan.

To have been just one candidate in each of the 20 categories in each of the 15 districts, we would have needed 300 candidates, but since there are only 98 candidates, meaning an average of just over six per district, and since they will not be spread evenly across the 20 categories and 15 districts, it is highly likely there will be some districts and many categories with no candidates at all.

Then the self-selecting fun began. First with intra-group voting in which all the candidates within each group in each district vote among themselves, each having up to two votes. You could vote for yourself, but only once, and the top five candidates from each group, in each district, then advance to the inter-group vote, in which all the groups in each district are randomly arranged into divisions, each division having three to five groups. At this stage, the remaining candidates cast one vote for another candidate in each of the groups in their division, and the top three candidates in each group advance to the provincial round of self-selection on June 16.

On that day, the same intra-group and inter-group voting will take place before moving on to repeat the process at the national level on June 26.

Imagine what a busy Sunday this would be indeed for our beloved Election Commission with this self-selecting process being carried out across 20 professional and identity groups in 928 districts in 76 provinces.

Re: "New overseas income rules", (Business, June 5).

The Revenue Department is proposing legislation that will now tax our worldwide income in the year earned. While not thrilled from the radical rule changes that we were under a year ago, this is consistent with how most other countries treat their tax residents.

However, if you're now going to go down the legislative route, one area that needs addressing is the inability to offset capital losses against capital gains. If in the year I made a capital gain of a million selling my Nvidia stock, and lost the same amount selling my Intel, I need to report and pay tax on the full one million stock gain, with no offsetting credit for the stock loss.

Thailand will be unique in the world in not allowing what is a very common and fair practice with not only securities but all risk-taking capital transactions. The result is you'll now likely see both people and capital flight from the folks you can least afford to lose.

Re: "Bad property idea", (PostBag, June 8).

Burin Kantabutra is right to raise the issue of the long-standing Thai prohibition on foreign firms and individuals owning land or legal businesses outright. Further discouraging is the increasing recent practice by a few listed SET companies to waive the right for individuals to receive their freely issued warrants, even for those expats who live in Thailand permanently.