I have been asked by a few people why I left my old school. Was there a problem? What really happened? I haven’t said anything as I wanted time to think things through before even thinking about writing about anything to do with Assumption College and my departure.
Plus it isn’t just one thing but a build up of things over time, so it cannot be pooled into a short post, or summed up in a few paragraphs.
This post will cover the very start and will not interest many people but maybe some. I will be candid and very truthful, there are plenty of teachers from the school who drop by this blog and if I try to sweeten the truth I hope they call me on it, but I won’t as everything I say will be what happened.
Back at the start of the school year, way back in May 2010, we arrived back at school and we had a new Brother. Brother Fern is his nickname, I met him and he immediately impressed me with his presence. He was very confident; he strode everywhere and was confident using his English.
Over the next few weeks I was more than impressed with Brother Fern, he was very proactive, walking the floors of the school, looking in classrooms making sure students and teachers were doing what they were meant to be doing.
Why did this impress me? Well the only other brother, Brother Sakda that I worked under who I can truthfully say I never had a problem with as I hardly ever seen him. In the 4 years I spoke to him maybe a handful of times; he walked past my classroom maybe twice in four years. And this was escorting important people or a committee.
So seeing Brother Fern, everyday walking past the classroom, stopping and looking at your class, checking of students was a breath of fresh air.
After just a few weeks, my secondary classes, year 10 and year 12 hated him; they despised him because he believed in the rules and enforced the rules. He would be at morning assembly, walking amongst students and offering advice for students stepping out of line. In the afternoons at home time, he would he there to say goodbye to students and also speak to any parents that wandered by.
This did not happen before. Brother Sakda was more of a background brother, Brother Fern was hands-on, and he was in control. I still to this day think he is good for the school, for the education of the students but as a person I do not have an ounce of respect for the man. He is a liar and once you have lied directly to my face, you will never get my respect back. He did this one day and from that day on I did not respect him, never wai (Thai greeting) to him, or spoke to him. More on this at a later date.
The first problem happened not long after school started. Something happened over the holidays that caught the school with its pants down, big red face stuff. Caught taking money from teachers that wasn’t theirs. As simple as that.
Foreign teachers have tax taken from their pays each month, 3% of their wage is deducted for tax reasons. This is fine as we all have to pay tax, or so I believed.
A teacher had gone to the government tax department here in Ubon as he needed his tax receipt for his visa. The teacher uses a marriage visa and was going to renew his during the holidays. This is where it gets interesting.
The lady at the tax department tells him, “you do not have to pay tax! You do not earn enough!”
Are you sure? Can you check? And so on but it was true some teachers on certain salaries, the first few years did not earn enough to have tax taken from their pays.
Well this did not sit well with some teachers once word went around. Why was the school deducting taxes knowing for certain that they did not have to pay taxes? And they knew as they did have to pay taxes for some of us who were over the tax threshold.
Excuses were, the money is used for visas and other things, but in the contract it states all visa fees and charges are paid for by the school.
So the first month was interesting as the calculations were made for how much each teacher was owed. Some teachers had sweet fuc$ all returned but others had a few thousand baht and one teacher over 20,000 baht. Greedy little pigs caught with the hands in the cookie jar.
Then I was approached, Jason you know the school has been good to you, and they have helped you and so on. The school has only been deducting 2% from your wage for tax (that is what is stated in the contract). I nodded my head and kept waiting for the punch line. Then it came.
Jason, the school hasn’t been taking enough for tax so you actually owe (I can truthfully not remember the exact amount) 30,000 baht. But the school doesn’t want you to pay because you have been a good teacher and so on.
I chimed in and said, “That is good because I would not have paid a red cent, it states 2% in my contract and if it was more than that then the school should have let me know. I am happy to pay my taxes.”
It went back and forward telling me that the school didn’t want me to pay it back and me saying that was good because I wouldn’t and I am not grateful that the school was being “so nice” to me.
Anyway, this made certain people not happy. How dare the foreigners complain about this and expect money back. So things started to sour from this time on. I believe it did but maybe other teachers didn’t.
And then things become nastier. How? Well some old teachers who no longer worked at the school contacted them and asked for their money back. One was owed 16,000 baht from memory.
Well accusations flew. Who told them? How did they know? The knives were out for the snitch. I wish it was me.
Well here you go. Any teacher who worked at Assumption College Ubon Ratchathani you could be owed money, contact the school and tell them, Brunty sent you.
It took a few months and some angry words from some teachers, some going to the finance office and asking strongly about what was going on. And I know that school was accused of stealing their money (the teachers) and the school didn’t want to pay it back. And this was effectively what happened.
It was explained that the money had to be approved by brother, and that it could not be paid until then. To cut a long story short, it was finally paid. I cannot remember the exact date or even month but it was at least a few months for sure as it really affected the atmosphere for a while.
Please, if you do not agree with what I have written or I am wrong then correct me if anyone from the school reads this as it is the truth from what I remember. You can remain anonymous of course.
But to me this really changed the atmosphere for me; foreign teachers had become trouble makers or people who were not Thai. See Thai people love Thai people because they are “yes” people.
If you are a senior person, have been longer at the school, a higher rank, have a bigger di##. Okay well the last one doesn’t matter; you are expected to just agree with anything that is asked of you. You are meant to say ‘yes’ to everything.
You are not aloud to be the stone that causes ripples in the flat water, very, very bad indeed. I had explained many times that most foreigners speak their mind. If they believe something is not right, is not a good idea, they will say so. There are the foreigners that suck ass, they are white Thais.
These are the ones scared shitless of losing their jobs, they need their jobs as they have Thai family and no other source of income. They need their work permit to stay in the land of smiles as they cannot afford a retirement or marriage visa, have the 800,000 in the bank for three months. So they just slide under the radar quietly. They do have a point of view but never in front of a boss or a Thai teacher.
If you say anything, anything at all in front of a Thai teacher, it will be spread like a wildfire during the lunchbreak and by the end of the day; the Chinese whisper has of course been manipulated into something outrageous and comical most times.
There were times where things were deliberately said in front of certain people as you knew that this would be the “news of the day” even if not true and just for fun. Like leaving certain articles on your desk, or say job applications laying around the office and see the enquiries of, “Who printed this? Who is looking for a new job?” It was funny at times, to me.
This school year, the camaraderie between the foreign and Thai teachers has been its lowest ever, many unhappy people. I personally couldn’t have cared less. I had a job to do and did it to 100% of my ability.
I did my job, my Thai team teacher and I got on well, she tolerated me and I her. As for my secondary classes, my team teacher never set foot once in my classroom, and I never expected her to. If you cannot teach senior students to understand what is being taught without the use of a Thai teacher, you need to adjust your lesson. As simple as that for me.
This is just the first instalment, part of the reason I changed schools. It will get a lot nastier yet, and there will be some unhappy people about the truth, but it is the truth and will be told.
The next part I am not sure when, when I get time I will start tapping away. But as I said, it was an accumulation of many things, not just one and there are things I did wrong. I am not claiming to be an angel. And I will lay it all out on the table. I have nothing to hide.
Brunty.
10 comments:
It's going to get better than THIS? Can't wait for the next parts... Cheers man...
Great post. The tax deduction from teachers who do not need to pay tax is very, very common in ESL in Thailand. As far as I can tell this is because many teachers do not have a work permit but still work significant hours - this is illegal and the school doesn't pay tax because the teachers are not "on the books". However, they still deduct it from salaries to make a quick buck. Another common practice in private English training companies is to pay large salaries to staff who have left - the person who sets it up, usually the MD or a manager, is pocketing the extra money.
Wow!
It is the culture of deference in Thailand as a hierarchical society where power is its own justification that is at the root of most of the problems in Thai society.
People will go on tolerating and being made fools of until they break and go on the rampage on the streets. But as a farang working in Thailand, can you really swim against the flow?
I hope your new school is a happier place and that your criticisms on this site do not come back to haunt you.
Andrew
Hi VL, it gets better as I am pig headed and will not just let things be pushed under a mat. When something is wrong, it is wrong.
Siam English, I believe that now for sure. I can just imagine the thousands of schools across Thailand doing this and making a few thousand baht here and there.
The private firms paying large salaries to fictitious employees. I believe it for sure.
I could not believe that all the extra curricular schools are tax free businesses. I heard and researched it and is completely true. That blew my mind.
Hi Andrew, great to hear from you, hope you and Cat are well and you are creating a new story for us to read.
Hierarchy and the supposed power it carries here in Thailand really angers me at times, mostly in the most common of places. A restaurant where some tosser thinks he is someone and speaks rudely to a waitress, I witness it on the golf course. The people who play golf believe they have status, well many of them. The way some treat caddies, they are more like slaves that a caddy. But it is the Thai way.
They do tolerate it and then some snap, and I cannot blame them. The way some are treated day in and out is disgusting.
The new school is great, really great. The teachers I work with have been fantastic to me. It is still the honeymoon period but everything looks a lot brighter to me.
Andrew I did think long and hard about writing nothing, but then I thought if I just tell the truth nothing should come back and haunt me. If I lie then I am open to many different avenues in Thai law.
You were a corporate lawyer, weren’t you? What do you think? Let sleeping dogs lie????
I am not going to be mean and just write hateful things, but tell the path that I travelled before being left with no choice to leave a job I had worked so hard at for over 5 years.
Anyway, the next instalment I am not sure when.
Thanks for dropping by all.
Brunty
Didn't I hear somewhere on the grape vine that at one stage teachers at your school were told that the extra tax that was taken away from you was then given back disguised as an end of year bonus?
Anon, yes that is true and I forgot about that completely. The tax money went towards helping pay the bonus.
And a teacher didn't qualify for a bonus until the end of their second year, so two years of tax money collected.
Your story on the tax problem at your former school has been bought to my attention by a work colleague. I read with considerable interest the story and then reread it again five times because I couldn’t work out how this problem ever developed in the first place.
When I came to Ubon Ratchathani University in 1994, I required a yearly visa up until 2004, after which I became a permanent resident with no more visa requirements. When getting my yearly visa in September of each year, I was required to show all my income tax forms.
In 1994 I was registered as a tax payer and obtained an IRD card and number. Every February, the university sent me my yearly tax paid statement which also showed the monthly deductions for tax and social welfare. With this statement from my employer, I filled out my tax return in March (Form 91). I usually was taxed at between 7-10%. Most years I received a tax return because of donations made, dependent children etc.
In September when I applied for my visa I had to show to Immigration at Phibun, the stamped tax return, my tax holder card, my yearly tax statement from the university and another statement from the university showing the tax paid in the current year up until September. Sometimes I forgot the latter and had to return the next day with it.
I always presumed that all foreign teachers on yearly contracts were required to do the same in order to get a visa.
Just a letter from the university stating tax deductions wasn’t good enough. You had to show tax paid from the local Inland Revenue department on Form 91.
How are you able to get a yearly visa without showing tax paid documents (Form 91)? How are you able to get an yearly visa without being a registered tax payer?
It appears to me that your former school is cheating the government out of tax because they are not paying it to the tax office and probably you are not paying enough anyway. Say for example, you are earning 30,000 baht per month, then you should be taxed at about 7%, not 2%. In addition, any extra money earned from private weekend teaching should also be taxed.
Back in the 1970s there were periods that all foreigners leaving Thailand had to show a statement from Inland Revenue that they had paid their tax. Perhaps it is high time for Thailand to reintroduce this again, because it appears they are losing a considerable amount of revenue which they can not afford. But then. if Immigration were as strict with you as they were with me, your school and all teachers at your school would be paying tax at the proper rate.
Dr. Michael great to hear from you and hope you are well.
You are right, when we renew our visas we have to show the tax receipt. The things was/is the school takes care of all of this.
When the documents are all gathered together for the visas, a representative from the school usually travels with the teacher to Phibun.
We only found out as this teacher was on a marriage visa from a different area and when he was going to renew the visa needed the receipt. This is when it all come to the surface and what was going on.
The school were paying taxes for teachers who were above the threshold to the government, but the ones who were not required to pay taxes were also being taxed but this money was not paid to the government but being kept by the school.
Up to 150,000 baht you are exempt from paying tax, but then you can also include another 150,000 baht for your spouse and 15,000 baht per child and other exemptions as well.
I was earning 36,000 baht base salary and I should have been paying at least 7% and would have been more than happy to pay this but the school never explained this but wrote In the contract, 3% deducted for insurance and 2% for tax.
No foreign teachers are allowed to privately tutor students outside of their school. The work permit exists only for the workplace stated in the work permit book.
Teachers who do extra classes at the school for a ridiculous 300baht per hour receive this money as cash; the school does not place this onto their official pay. Why the teachers work for 300baht is beyond me.
I agree Dr. that all foreigners should pay tax who are working in the kingdom but there are so many that are not on the books and receive cash payments each month.
Assumption was paying cash to teachers who didn’t have the right documents but needed white faces to teach, so they would go and get their 3 month tourist visa (paid by the school) and then teach for three months and return and get another 3 month visa. This is happening all over Thailand.
Look at the extra curricular schools, there are tens of thousands of these scattered across Thailand, they are tax free businesses. They make a fortune and pay cash to the foreigners working for them.
Millions or billions of dollars of taxes would not be collected each year here in Thailand for sure, if it was collected; would it be put to good use?
Thanks for your comments.
I wouldn't let some else (in your case the school) handle my taxes. For those of you above the tax threshold, I believe you may be pleasantly surprised at how much you will get returned in a tax rebate. The tax office in Ubon is very good and very quick. From reading your comments all I can say is that it appears that many of the teachers are being ripped off.
I also wouldn't let the school (in my case the university) handle my visa. Right from the beginning I have always done things myself. There have been problems, but in the end everything worked out fine.
Thai hierarchy... One of my long lasting memories of my grade school days in Thailand: one of my classmates' mother was a school janitor (I went to one of those demonstration schools that you either have to be rich or have parents employed by the school or its university to get in). One day I and a few friends walked past her in a corridor and, much to my Thai friends' horror, I greeted her with a wai and the woman nearly cried.
The school kids treated the janitors like servants and nobody ever wai her. There was something so morally wrong about how someone should be so grateful for such a common gesture of courtesy that her expression stuck with me ever since.
Ok... Off to read part 2 now. :o)
Post a Comment