Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing Tourist Tax in Thailand. I thought of making this video after reading a recent comment on our channel, quoting directly: "It appears that retirees who live here must have to pay the 300 Baht "Tourist Tax" every entry. So much for Retirement, one year Visa status is still tourist." I think what they are trying to say is "look you're considered a tourist even though you are a retiree for all intents and purposes here."

First off, let's be clear. This so-called Tourist Tax has yet to be rolled out. They have been talking about this for a while. Personally, I think they need to find something else to talk about. I don't think it's a good idea to bring it up. Frankly I think there are other ways to generate revenue even from tourism, without directly taxing tourists. I really have some issues with that; I think there's a better way to deal with it. Leaving that aside, we have not seen this implemented yet. Now when we have seen it discussed at length over the past couple years, retirees have kind of fallen in and out of that boat. I think ultimately, again pure speculation on my part, but I think ultimately we will probably see something akin to this so-called Tourist Tax on tourists; I think they will probably get some kind of extra levy on folks inbound to Thailand. Now will retirees be pulled into that? Again hard to say. Bear in mind, the Retirement Visa is a Non-Immigrant Visa, it is not an Immigrant Visa so there is no presumption of being sort of a landed immigrant or having residence in Thailand in the same sense that say a Thai citizen does. So I could see a scenario where they might impose that levy on retirees coming in and out of Thailand but as a practical matter, again I think they are going to have a hard time implementing it, and frankly it hasn't been implemented.

So the thing to take away from this video is Tourist Tax remains to be seen. I am hoping we never actually see it come to fruition and as of right now, I think it's only an outside possibility that retirees will be covered by it. Now that said, I could turn out to be wrong and I will certainly keep folks updated on this channel as the situation evolves.