Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are asking the question, could Tax Policy be next in the hit parade if you will; I have got to be honest with you, I feel like especially like the last six or eight weeks, especially the expats who were here, it feels like it is like The Three Stooges - we are just sort of being smacked upside the head, smacked in the face over and over with different updates regarding Tax stuff, Banking, Immigration crackdowns etc.

I wanted to make this video because as I discussed in a video I made contemporaneously with this one, internal banking policy, especially as regards to affidavits pertaining to bank balances, is now having an impact directly on people's ability to do things like extend Visa status here in Thailand, and it doesn't strictly pertain to Retirement Visas. It could impact other types of Visa categories as well. Meanwhile, we are also seeing things like the Destination Thailand Visa, those folks who are in Thailand, being impacted by Bank Policy because they are basically not able to open Bank Accounts. Now I talked about that sometime ago where I said, look this Destination Thailand Visa doesn't look like all it's cracked up to be and I didn't view it as the most optimal Visa category. That has kind of borne out but okay we are still kind of seeing how it is playing out. The question posed in this video is, how likely is it that we are going to see Tax Policy start to impact Thai Immigration. 

As I have discussed in prior videos, one of the big things when talking about and I went into great detail on this in the context of Tax, frankly there is a lot of in my opinion charlatans running around Thailand and saying all kinds of nonsense about Thai Tax Policy, really out of school, and I have gone into that in great detail in prior videos. But the point of this video is we are now seeing banking policies that in my opinion are coming down the pike as a result of this Government which I think we may have turned a corner on some of this stuff, but things like the OECD and the World Economic Forum and all their weird policies about banking and tax have had now an impact on, we are seeing one specifically large banking institution requiring affidavits that are especially onerous on people who want to extend their visas status. 

Now I am starting to ask the question, we are here in what are we at, quarter 3 now of 2025, going into quarter 4. This is where we have seen memoranda in the past be promulgated by the Revenue Department that wildly changed how they assessed tax liability in the past. Could we be waiting for the other shoe to drop with regard to Tax Policy and could that have an impact on Immigration Policy. 

As I have said in the past, I think the vast majority of folks as it pertains to this tax stuff were not going to be impacted. Then again these charlatans sort of ran around and stirred up a big bunch of frankly hype around this whole issue basically so they could make money. Then essentially that had an impact, undue influence if you will, on the Revenue Department System here in Thailand. But at the end of the day, as I said at the time, until we started seeing the Immigration Office requiring tax documentation, it wasn't something to worry about. Well look, go back to the beginning of the year here in Thailand. I did videos talking about how a certain faction of the Coalition wanted to go ahead and implement a new entry scheme here in Thailand that seemed to be sort of integral to this rolling out of the Destination Thailand Visa and then on top of it, this counting of days that a person was physically present in Thailand so as to assess whether or not they become tax resident. Another faction within the Coalition basically in a sense - I don't know if it was intentional or not - effectively rolled out a policy where they said, "hey we are updating the Digital Arrival Card, so therefore you can't roll this out right now because we are implementing this system, we'll have to at least postpone that." That occurred. They rolled out the Digital Arrival Card. We didn't see anything more about this heightened digital entry system that seemed to be a component of Destination Thailand Visas, and it seemed to also be intertwined with this whole notion of tax and counting the number of days you're here for purposes of assessing tax residency. My question is now that the Coalition partner that was rolling out the Thai Digital Arrival Card is no longer in the Coalition, we have seen the Minister of Interior change to a person from the Party that was for this new system, could we now see a new system being rolled out in Immigration that looks like what they were talking about at the first part of 2025. I don't know the answer to that question, but I think it is a good thing to be wondering about right now especially as we are seeing the Government here in Thailand shift. 

So the thing to take away from this video and understand is we are in a state of flux right now. Those who are looking to come to Thailand, if you are not here yet, it is a good idea to contact a legal professional in my opinion, before you get here to get your ducks best in a row for arrival here so that you are in the best posture you can be in once you are here. For folks that are already here, you may want to make arrangements way beforehand than you have ever made before with regard to the possibility of your Visa extension and again it is worth noting, I go ahead and get into more in-depth analysis on this stuff in our paid news service. For those who are interested, you can email us at [email protected], and we get into some in-depth analysis on how all this changing stuff including the politics, may impact Immigration Policy and therefore the Expat Community. Also for those who are interested, my better half and I have actually opened a restaurant here in downtown Bangkok dedicated to American diner style food, and folks that are interested in having some diner style food, like breakfast anytime, our place is called Pancake Palace. Obviously, the name implies breakfast anytime, but we have also got cheeseburgers, buffalo wings, chilli - all that good stuff. If you are interested, maybe check that out. But again, with regard to the paid news service, I'm talking about this stuff even more in depth than even on here.

The thing to take away from this video though and understand is I think there's a possibility moving into the latter part of 2025 and into 2026 where we could see Tax and Tax Policy here in Thailand increasingly intertwined within the Immigration system, in the immigration apparatus. How exactly that plays out remains to be seen, and we will certainly be keeping you updated on this channel as the situation evolves.