Thailand defends plan to transfer money from idle accounts to treasury

BANGKOK, Nov 2 (Reuters) - A planned Thai law allowing the transfer of money from bank accounts left inactive for more than 10 years to the treasury “will be in the public interest”, the finance minister said on Thursday.


The move would help reduce the government’s borrowing costs in maintaining the treasury level, Apisak Tantivorawong told reporters.


“Those accounts parked with the government will be useful for the public as they can be counted as treasury money,” he said.


“But I can confirm that it’s not seizing people’s money as reported,” he said, adding account owners or their heirs would be able to reclaim the money at any time.


Money in long-dormant accounts is estimated at about 10 billion baht ($302 million), ministry official Suwit Rojanavanich said earlier this week.


The ministry plans to seek cabinet approval for the law in December after seeking public opinion. ($1 = 33.11 baht)

https://www.reuters.com/article/thai...-idUSL4N1N542B

Looks like my ex-gf's 7k in TMB has found a new place to park.

This is also done in western countries, all accounts that stayed idle for too long get transferred to a central public entity.

Also places like Switzerland, which is friendly to the types of people most likely to vanish.

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Originally Posted by jabir

Also places like Switzerland, which is friendly to the types of people most likely to vanish.

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Ghost accounts eh?

State thievery, in one form or another.

That's the way we like it.

Wang Lows Wheat Chariot, Cuming forth took Harry me ome

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Originally Posted by HuangLao

State thievery, in one form or another.

That's the way we like it.

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Yeah, whilst they may not like it, it violates a fundamental concept of property rights: another sign of statism.
Even if you were to create a law to make this a contractual thing for putting your money in a bank, applying it retrospectively would then violate yet another legal axiom. Presumably, if someone discovers their account has been seized, they can reclaim it? Or families of the deceased can claim inheritance of accounts? The citizen's property rights must trump the state's, because the state exists to serve the citizen, not the other way round.

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Originally Posted by CaptainNemo

Yeah, whilst they may not like it, it violates a fundamental concept of property rights: another sign of statism.
Even if you were to create a law to make this a contractual thing for putting your money in a bank, applying it retrospectively would then violate yet another legal axiom. Presumably, if someone discovers their account has been seized, they can reclaim it? Or families of the deceased can claim inheritance of accounts? The citizen's property rights must trump the state's, because the state exists to serve the citizen, not the other way round.

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The state exist to serve itself, corporations, and the establishment - has become solidly universal, regardless of one's perspective.

Nothing more, nothing less.