Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are asking are Visa fees sort of a "tax" on foreign retirees in Thailand? I thought of making this video after reading a recent comment which I will get to here in a moment that was on a prior video we did where we were talking about whether or not they are going to phase out Retirement Visas. I know retirees kind of had a little bit of an ambivalent response to that video. I know I come from a different perspective than retirees and let me be clear, the vast majority of retirees are not going to be heavily impacted by these new changes to taxes. If you have already been taxed on whatever your asset is or your funds inbound to you are, for the most part you are probably going to be okay. But again, as I said in prior videos, 80% of folks are probably all right. There is going to be a subset though and I reckon it is around about 20%, that may be adversely impacted in a sense from this in the sense that liability on certain things, depending on the underlying facts in their case, liability may be accessible. Now that being said, as I discussed in that video and sort of mentioned it off hand, I do find it a little bit odd having lived out here for almost 16 years now and I have paid taxes out here, lived and worked out here, it is a little strange that when someone lives in Thailand full time and is availing themselves of the infrastructure, the beneficial standard of living, the beneficial physical environment in terms of fact that it is warm, it is nice to live here, quite honestly Thai people are great and this is a really nice place to live, it seems a little odd that people are: "I'm not going to pay anything." 

Now I also got a lot of responses that said: "well I pay VAT every day." So do all the Thais, we all pay VAT, okay. I also got the usual "taxation is theft" comment, not incorrect, I do understand. I am not a big pro tax person. The great irony of my life is I am a sort of libertarian who ended up becoming one, a lawyer and then ended up being involved a lot in Tax Matters which on a personal level, I totally get it but I have got to put my lawyer hat on when we are talking about tax issues and to be clear, not a Thai lawyer, not a Thai Attorney. I am an American Attorney as we have talked before, but I am licensed in the Tax Courts and from time to time we do assist with Tax matters here which may have an American and an international and a Thai facet to those matters and we handle that quite frequently. 

That said, getting to the comment, quoting directly: "Retirees are also being taxed in a way with the numerous fees we pay for everything Visa related and the extra we pay for just being a foreigner living in Thailand." Well let's start with that. Just being a foreigner anywhere, if you are a foreign national in another country, you don't have a right to be there. I can't really stress that enough that again, I am not making this to be hard on retirees and whatever but some of these arguments in my mind are just kind of nonsensical because you don't have a right to be in that place so the people that are from that place, that sovereign nation, have a right to dictate the terms of physical presence of non-natives in that country. That one again doesn't particularly bother me. And by the way, every foreigner has to pay fees associated with being in Thailand. Folks that are working here, folks that are on ED visas, folks that are here married to a Thai, it's not just aimed at retirees. I think there's kind of a notion in the retiree community here that they are being ganged up on. Not really, not really. All foreigners, all expats in Thailand are going to have to deal with some visa fees. Then again when we get to Visa fees, again, do you know how much it costs to immigrate to the United States? And by the way, notwithstanding the cost, it takes years just to get into the country. I don't know of any other jurisdiction on the face of the planet that will allow somebody who by dint of the fact that they are over 50 years old, can make it to Thailand and can show $23,000 roughly equivalent, $23,000, roughly 800,000 baht in a Thai Bank Account, not money paid into the Thai system but money in a Thai Bank Account and they will allow that person to just remain year on year on year on year as long as they can maintain the requirements, point to me another jurisdiction that is as nice and safe and has the standard of living as Thailand that can boast the same kind of visa scheme. I am hard-pressed to find it; I don't see where it's at.

Now again nobody, I really like retirees and one of the reasons I sometimes make these videos is because I am hoping you will may be see things a little bit more from the Thai perspective so as to understand why they are doing what they are doing and also to make your life a little bit more pleasant because once you kind of understand why they are doing it and how it works and their paradigm, you can sort of understand "hey I kind of get it and it allows us to kind of get on down the road a little easier." On top of that, the fees associated with maintaining Retirement Visa status here in Thailand are not extraordinary by any stretch of the imagination. I mean just to process documentation through different parts of the American Immigration apparatus, costs orders of magnitude more than what is it, the 1900 Baht it cost to do a renewal of a Visa extension for retirees here in Thailand, I mean orders of magnitude above it, like 10 times that just to get a case on file with USCIS in the United States; it is currently like $535, okay just to get a case on file. That is not even talking about the back end of the whole process where you are dealing with the Embassy and their fees and all that other good stuff. So, the thing I would take away from this video is try to keep things a little bit in perspective when it comes to these issues associated with expat retirees here in the Kingdom of Thailand.