Transcript of the above video:

We are yet again talking about this Tourist Levy, Tourist Tax. This is one of those that I just wish would go away and people will say "Well then why are you making a video on it?" Well if it gets mentioned out there in the ether of the internet, especially by major press outlets here in Thailand, I think it is worth commenting on if only to sort of remind everybody what a bad idea it is. 

That said, I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: State eyes alternative to B300 Tourist Levy. Quoting directly: "The Government is sidelining the 300-Baht tourism fee that was postponed many times during the previous administration, seeking alternative Insurance for foreign tourists." So the issue seems to be around the fact that foreign nationals may sometimes for lack of a better term, tax the medical system, the medical infrastructure here when they sustain an accident here in Thailand, or they fall ill here and they are trying to figure out some way of mitigating the cost of this to the overall hospital system. They constantly have been talking about the notion of levying a tax, an inbound tax, an airport fee, whatever. I have continued to think it is a bad idea and I like that the Government is so-called sidelining this. I hope this is fully sidelined now and we can just move on, not have to talk about this. As they go on, and I urge folks who are watching this video, read that article in detail, they go on to explain that the Government is looking for alternative means in order to mitigate against what appears to me again to be pressure on the infrastructure of the medical system here coming from foreigners; look we get huge spikes of foreigners coming into Thailand during high season. There's a lot. There could be millions of foreign nationals in Thailand at any given time and those people, you have to take them into consideration when you are dealing with things like the infrastructure here. 

So I do get why they are trying to come up with a way to mitigate any negative impact on the infrastructure but the optics unfortunately of this so-called Tourist Tax in my opinion are just so bad, it is really not worth it to continue to try to figure that out from that angle. So hopefully this new Government will figure out a different angle of dealing with that mitigation of pressure on the infrastructure without the bad optics of a so-called Tourist Tax.