White Rabbit

I just play super safe - stayed 172 days and on a LTR WP visa. Am I super paranoid? BTW: I wouldn't mind to pay some taxes but fed up filling out forms and undressing myself outside the bedroom. Understandable at my age. 😉 Thailand would be well advised to levy a flat tax per head of 3000.- USD or so. In return we'd get a proper tax residence/TIN - can be useful should our home countries/other institutions demand such. That might not be in line with OECD regulations but then who cares? Thailand can safely ignore. (Joining the OECD with its agenda of creating worldwide bureaucracies which Thailand obviously aims to really has no advantages except perceived prestige. However, with Trump I don't think the OECD has a bright future anyway. He doesn't favour worldwide regulations and rightly so. The Chinese will never join as secrecy culturally always trumps transparency for them.)

Ya can make it to 88 and it's a lucky number.

Yes and no. If you believe Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam have a more positive attitude towards Westerners than the Thais you couldn't be more wrong. I have lived in both Malaysia and Indonesia and now as a retiree happily settled for Thailand. Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam definitely are rather chauvinist for religious and historical reasons. Spain indeed is a great country and my fallback option in case.

It all depends on you and whom you choose to mingle with. People are the same everywhere but in general the Thais have better manners than most others. I experience gratitude very regularly. And I'm grateful that I'm privileged to be able to help here and there. There are a lot of really disadvantaged people in Thailand.

Of course you are right to try if you so wish and should you get clearer answers I and others will certainly be grateful if you share those with us here. I'm personally quite satisfied with the answers laid out by the BOI and communicated here. A royal decree does hold value for sure. I would not agree that mine is a 'head in the sand' approach though as I simply just doubt there will ever be a clear black and white answer. There are advantages for the authorities to not clarifying things 100% - so there's always a possibility to fault/pressurise you should you misbehave. In Italy for example if you build you'll always and inevitably be in the wrong as there are countless diverging and opposing laws and regulations. You'll learn to live with it as you do with all inherent risks of life... I personally think it's equally risky to pressurise local authorities in Phuket too much about something they themselves not even know how to deal with yet. I'd prefer to fly under the radar as much as possible without neglecting my research. The BOI and the PM for all his activism are no strangers to reasonable economic behaviour and are aware of the mid- and longterm consequences of heavily taxing wealthy foreigners and companies. (Of course the best solution for all would be simple flat tax (1-300k THB or so) payable by all foreign residents without having to strip naked and fill out forms.) There are so many considerations that we have absolutely no control over as much as one might wish. Wishing you all the best and good luck.

Respectfully, I think you are asking for trouble... you will not get more concise answers - the system doesn't work like that - and it wouldn't in Italy, or today's Germany or the UK for that matter. In Thailand wordings are mostly opaque - not necessarily intentionally but it's in the language which is much less black and white than our Western languages are. So my advice would be to cease harassing your wife for further phone calls, and to relax and enjoy your life and the tax free status which the LTR WP visa grants you - at least for now and the foreseeable future. I'm sure your wife will thank you as well. Most Thais feel we're overthinking things anyway. By applying for the LTR visa we have all done what we could. (If you can't stop worrying you could always travel and make sure you'll spend less than 180 days in Phuket/Thailand.)

That makes sense to me. Another type of visa would collide of course and not "re-newing" the visa after the first 5year have expired would make the existing LTR visa void. No surprises or opaque moments here. One could read into the wording that there's the usual competition between gov agencies going on (immi and BOI in this case but it really is a worldwide phenomenon) but I once was told by a wise woman not to assume... and she was right as usual.

Precisely - there are 4 different classes of LTR visas - and all allow to quite easily apply for a work permit. One of subclasses is meant for ppl working in Thailand - they then get a preferential and in may eyes reasonable flat tax rate of 17%. Income generated in Thailand is always subject to taxation. Income generated abroad - world income - is tax free for holders of LTR visas. This is certainly not unfair. Excessive taxation is unfair. There are many such schemes in the world, UK non-dot status is just one example; they greatly benefit the countries that introduce them but of course there's always the envious ones disguising their envy as 'looking for justice or fairness' or whatever. Life is neither. But individuals can act fairly. Governments can be clever at best and act in the best interest of their home country. Thailand is quite good at that. If you act fairly and respectfully Thais and most government agencies will mostly recognise such and treat you accordingly.

Whether that is a high or low threshold is of course debatable as all else ;-). However, to obtain passive income of 80k USD you'd probably need about 3 million USD of invested assets at around 3% mean dividend/interest so still a considerable sum of money. Of course it all is relative - and I assume you are much much wealthier than that as you are bringing this up - but from the Thai government point of view this certainly makes sense: those retirees spend their money in Thailand, pay sales taxes etc. No real downside as we oldies usually behave, don't drive like madmen... So I believe this scheme will remain in place and benefit Thais and foreigners alike hopefully for many more years to come.

Never had an issue despite several visits of two weeks each. Very considerate immigration clerks. 👏 does anyone have experience with longer tourist visa for Japan as we‘d like to stay for a month? Is such a visa hard to get from Japanese embassy in Bangkok?

Just to double-check - I have an LTR retiree visa - grateful for that. Now, if I travel outside Thailand at least once within a year’s time I never have to do the one year reporting? Is that correct? Actually I’m probably traveling abroad 3-4 times a year. And I’m also registered online with immigration on the same address as my yellow book states. Thanks for all feedback.