Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing the LTR visa, so-called Long-Term Residence Visa. As we have discussed in other videos on this channel, it is kind of a misnomer calling it a Long-Term Residence Visa, it does not provide Permanent Residence per se, in fact it's a 10 year Visa again in theory, but it's 10 years with you get one five year side of it and then you are constantly scrutinized throughout that five years and then you get another 5 years I guess where you are scrutinized even further. Again we haven't seen this fully shake out but it looks to me like notwithstanding sort of all the bells and whistles and promises associated with it, it's not a sort of a hassle-free a deal as most folks think. The thrust of this video is to talk about the tax implications. I thought about making this video after reading a recent article on Pattaya Mail, pattayamail.com, the article is titled: Elite Card is winning the battle of Thailand's long stay visas. Quoting directly: "Long-term residents LTR Visa program offering wealthy pensioners, investors, executives and digital nomads 10 years in return for Investments or income mostly in excess of the Elite requirements. The scheme is under the jurisdiction of the Board of Investment whose marketing strategies seem stagnant by comparison. Also, the much-publicized perk of possible entitlement to buy freehold land has now been canceled by the Thai Cabinet." Yeah we have done a lot of videos on this channel about that. The land ownership, possibility for foreigners has now fallen by the wayside, that is not possible now. Quoting further: "The main attractions of the LTR specifically are a lower rate of income tax for professionals and the possibility of an alternative route to a Work Permit. Although BOI has not published any data since the September 2022 launch, the take-up is rumored to be small." 

Okay, this is kind of where you get into the nuanced side of the analysis on here. It is my understanding that this LTR is rolled out, it provides a flat tax rate of 17% which is a little odd and I kind of have an issue with that being a Thai insofar as a foreigner can come in and get this flat rate and I have still got to deal with progressive tax brackets for my own income. But okay, leaving that aside. The other thing is though I found that 17% to be rather interesting because we have set up a number of SMEs including my company, this firm 15 years ago and I have dealt with the tax rate here in Thailand and for the most part I am usually dealing with 15% personal income tax. Now again, there are taxes associated with maintaining a corporation in Thailand, I get all of that, but at the end of the day, especially for folks who are sort of high net worth individuals etc., I could see a number of different scenarios from a tax standpoint where it would probably be better off just setting up a Company and using that to do business here in Thailand, even regionally and what not, rather than sort of relying on this LTR Visa which again some of its foundations in my opinion at least from a legal standpoint, again kind of from an outside observer's perspective, seem a little bit tenuous as we saw with the land deal that sort of came online as "oh this is going to be part of it" and then it fell by the wayside. 

Long story short I can see a number of different scenarios where you can end up with a situation where you are beating 17% but you are kind of in a more advantageous position for a number of different reasons most notably, if you go through standard Business Visa and Work Permit you're at least getting the clock ticking for real Permanent Residence and there is nothing I see with regard to the LTR that allows for any kind of path to Permanent Residence or ultimately citizenship as opposed to a standard Thai Business Visa and Work Permit and possibly an SME company here in the Kingdom of Thailand.