Permanent Residency in Thailand: Worth It? [Bangkok Podcast]

[guest879]

12 hours ago, tomazbodner said:

Application fee is 7000 baht. You don't need to pay any more if you don't get it approved in the end and accept it. (OK OK, so there is document translation, certifying true copies etc. that are extra costs. But official fee is 7k to apply and 93k (married to Thai) or 193k (unmarried to Thai) on approval. So 100 or 200k in total but only if approved.

they are the official fees but I doubt it can be done without paying considerably more. my work permit and visa was running me around 100k per year. when I left Thailand they were not even bothering to process any PR applications. they were just collecting the applications and fees.

[jayboy]

10 hours ago, gamini said:

There is one drawback with having a PR, and that is you have to file an income tax return. You have to pay tax unless you have a double taxation agreement with your source of income.

Incorrect.You need to show income tax has been paid to obtain PR but there is no requirement thereafter as regards the Immigration Department.In practice many including myself do file returns but that is nothing to do with PR.Your second sentence regarding double taxation is also incorrect.

[scorecard]

19 minutes ago, jayboy said:

Incorrect.You need to show income tax has been paid to obtain PR but there is no requirement thereafter as regards the Immigration Department.In practice many including myself do file returns but that is nothing to do with PR.Your second sentence regarding double taxation is also incorrect.

 

Correct. You need to prove that you have held a work permit for at least 3 years and prove that the you have paid your Thai taxes for the same period. 

 

Edited September 13, 2018 by scorecard

[jkcjag]

18 hours ago, guest879 said:

retirement visa is so easy and cheap. I cant see the point in risking a wad of cash to try for PR. I just got my thai girl NZ residency. Was about 70  000THB,  fairly straight forward and she can work here if she wants. If it was the same for me in Thailand I would have done it as I spent many hundreds of thousands of THB on visas and work permits over the 10 years I was there.

I believe a retirement visa requires you to be over 50, and does not qualify for a work permit...

[holy cow cm]

1 hour ago, scorecard said:

 

Correct. You need to prove that you have held a work permit for at least 3 years and prove that the you have paid your Thai taxes for the same period. 

 

So this is all based on working with work permit in Thailand and only paying Thai taxes? Or is it allowed to pay some small tax here from income that you make without working? I would gather that under other circumstances if someone is paid from the outside but of benefit to the country, it would be not applicable. And all of this is based on a point system, but I wonder what points are greater for the what. 

[scorecard]

12 minutes ago, holy cow cm said:

So this is all based on working with work permit in Thailand and only paying Thai taxes? Or is it allowed to pay some small tax here from income that you make without working? I would gather that under other circumstances if someone is paid from the outside but of benefit to the country, it would be not applicable. And all of this is based on a point system, but I wonder what points are greater for the what. 

 

"I would gather that under other circumstances if someone is paid from the outside but of benefit to the country, it would be not applicable."

 

Correct.

 

 

[scorecard]

15 minutes ago, scorecard said:

 

"I would gather that under other circumstances if someone is paid from the outside but of benefit to the country, it would be not applicable."

 

Correct.

 

 

 

Perhaps worth mentioning, the work performed by the PR applicant (with Thai work permit) must be of benefit to Thailand.  I don't know if there is a 'list' of 'benefit to Thailand', perhaps up to the judgement of the immigration folks.

 

 

[timendres]

On 9/12/2018 at 7:59 PM, tomazbodner said:

- you need to work for same company for 3 years or so before applying, and have a minimum of 85,000 THB salary.

Do you need to have been receiving the 85,000 baht salary for the entire 3 years, or does it just need to be your "current" salary?

[My Thai Life]

There Is already an excellent PR thread on this forum with detailed information and actual experience about the PR process, rather than speculation.

 

But on the more general point about “why”: in my opinion it depends on an individual’s situation. The more invested you become in Thailand, the more permanent you might want your residence status to be, hence the term “Permanent Residence”; and that “investment” could be financial and/or business, and/or personal.

 

For example, for people who are living off income from abroad and who have no personal commitments to Thailand, PR is pointless (and unavailable). For people who have business and/or financial and/or personal commitments to Thailand it makes a lot of sense.

 

In any event PR does provide some useful administrative benefits in addition to the security of tenure. And the usual nonsense about bribery is just that – nonsense.

[scorecard]

20 minutes ago, tomazbodner said:

Very good question. I believe I was told that it needs to be all the time during application and during the time preceding. But... They will check for preceding time however I do not remember them asking for any document from company or myself during the actual process. 

 

I (and I am guessing here) would believe that if your salary was on increase and at that level at application that would be sufficient. If it was on decline though that might cause some tense conversations. In my case it was over that for the entire period. Maybe someone else has the definitive answer. 

I got PR 20+ years ago. I had to provide a letter (in Thai language) from my employer about my gross salary at that time. 

The officer looked at it and read it, no questions, he moved on to other documents. 

 

 

 

 

[TerryLH]

On 9/12/2018 at 5:15 PM, guest879 said:

as I spent many hundreds of thousands of THB on visas and work permits over the 10 years I was there.

Unless using an agent, is 'many thousands of THB' even possible?

[guest879]

15 hours ago, TerryLH said:

Unless using an agent, is 'many thousands of THB' even possible?

to have a company, pay income tax, employee tax, accounting fees, visa fees, work permit fees, etc it is easily 100 000thb per year.

[scorecard]

Costs of work permit, including, in some cases, company registration, accounting and audit fess is one subject.

 

Costs of PR is a different subject.