Retirement to Work - 2 questions

[troniccrypt]

Hello,

 

First question.

 

I am in my early 50's. After many years of burning the candle at both ends I gained a retirement visa here in Thailand. This was impulsive at the time and I had a vison of myself totally retiring from work. 

 

Now these past months of watching television, driving my children too and from school and eating well, I have realised that I am not ready to retire yet. My retirement visa seemed like a good idea at the time but the reality is that I am putting on weight and bored to my teeth. 

 

Overseas, I have a software company that developed a full featured cryptocurrency trading platform that connects to more than 30 cryptocurrency exchanges and is in actively used by some very large cryptocurrency trading funds. It is quite unique. This is my retirement income, though I also have a fixed deposit account with few million in and a couple of extra million in my current account. So I satisfy the 800k rule. 

 

With the recent adoption of cryptocurrency business in Thailand, there is potentially something I can do and have thought of establishing a technology company here and making Bangkok a base for further developing and selling the cryptocurrency trading platform into the rest of the world. 

 

But to be honest, I am not sure where to begin. I am not sure of the rules and regulations of Thailand yet. 

 

So, Is it possible convert from retirement to work? And how would I do that? My current arrangement is valid for 6 months. 

 

Second question. 

 

My current arrangement was issued in Bangkok. The retirement extension was issued in another immigration office and my local immigration office is another one. 

 

This was pointed out to me by my local immigration office and was also quizzed at immigration the last time I arrived in BKK Airport as to why the address on my Tm6 did not match the address that the multiple entry re-entry permit was issued. 

 

I explained the truth easily that I decided to move to another region due to finding a better international senior school for my children. This was accepted and I was allowed to pass. But it gave me cause for concern and I am worried that I am missing some information here. Am I allowed to live in a different province? Or am I supposed to do something? I have never had the 90 day reporting as I have had to travel every month overseas to wind down some aspects of my company. 

 

Thank you for any response. 

 

Tron

 

 

[NCC1701A]

if you think immigration has a lot of red tape, wait until you try to form a company.

 

I came to Thailand in 2012 to open a office in Bangkok as part of my companies film visual effects business which is based in Hollywood, California . Lots of servers, rendering of visual effects shots, very high tech.  FOR ME it did not take long to realize there was hardly anyone to employ or train and the 49/51% Thai ownership rule was a deal killer.    

 

You need a work permit to work. Can your company fly under the radar at home? or do you need employees and have a public office? 

 

You need to report your change of address immediately to immigration every time you move. 

Including overnight stays at hotels. (the hotel does that for you.)

 

Thais think very simply and the idea that you could have more than one address or house or condo can potentially cause problems.

 

Good luck with your business, sounds interesting and i can relate to sitting and not having enough to do.

[ubonjoe]

You would need to form a company to get a work permit, non-b visa and extension of stay based upon working.

There is a lot of good info here in this business guide from the BOI. http://www.boi.go.th/upload/content/A Business Guide to thailand 2018_5ac3593458b0a.pdf

After getting the company set up you would more than likely have to leave the country without a re-entry permit and re-enter the country using a tourist visa or getting a visa exempt entry to apply for the work permit. Most work permit offices will not accept an application for the work permit if you are on an extension based upon retirement. They after getting the work permit application approval letter out for a non-b visa.

1 hour ago, troniccrypt said:

My current arrangement was issued in Bangkok. The retirement extension was issued in another immigration office and my local immigration office is another one. 

You need to formally change your address to where you are living now by submitting a TM28 form. If you do stay long enough to do a 90 day report that would be needed to do it at your local office.

[troniccrypt]

49 minutes ago, NCC1701A said:

if you think immigration has a lot of red tape, wait until you try to form a company.

 

FOR ME it did not take long to realize there was hardly anyone to employ or train and the 49/51% Thai ownership rule was a deal killer.    

 

You need a work permit to work. Can your company fly under the radar at home? or do you need employees and have a public office? 

 

You need to report your change of address immediately to immigration every time you move. 

Including overnight stays at hotels. (the hotel does that for you.)

 

Thais think very simply and the idea that you could have more than one address or house or condo can potentially cause problems.

 

Good luck with your business, sounds interesting and i can relate to sitting and not having enough to do.

Yes, i suspected that company formation is going to be a complex process. Have had experience of forming companies in other jurisdictions so am not overly concerned. I understand that there are some initiatives by the Board of Investment. So am currently looking at that avenue. That deals with the ownership problem. One company called IGLU seems to provide some options, though at a cost. Was offered an 4 year old BOI registered company last week by someone this is leaving to go back to Europe for a price of 5000 euros. Takes away some of the headache of company establishment but eyes wide open.....

 

I have also considered the employment issue and recruiting the right sort of staff. Thankfully the heavy technical lifting takes place overseas. In the rest of the world, it is difficult to find competent staff, i expect Thailand to be no different.  No matter where, staff are going to need training and i am happy to do that.

 

Who do you report your change too? I was told that when i return to Thailand each time i should go to immigration and register at my home address. After the 3rd time, the immigration officer said that I was already registered and that I did not need to do that when i returned home after being in abroad. So conflicting information seems to be in abundance. 

 

 

[NCC1701A]

8 minutes ago, troniccrypt said:

register at my home address

only when you change address.

[troniccrypt]

9 minutes ago, ubonjoe said:

 

There is a lot of good info here in this business guide from the BOI. http://www.boi.go.th/upload/content/A Business Guide to thailand 2018_5ac3593458b0a.pdf

 

After getting the company set up you would more than likely have to leave the country without a re-entry permit and re-enter the country using a tourist visa or getting a visa exempt entry to apply for the work permit.

 

You need to formally change your address to where you are living now by submitting a TM28 form. If you do stay long enough to do a 90 day report that would be needed to do it at your local office.

Thanks. The BOI is what I am investigating.

 

How do i leave the country without a re-entry permit when i have a multiple re-entry permit in my passport?

 

When i arrive back, i arrive back on a tourist visa exemption and ask them to ignore the current Re-Entry permit.

 

As far as I am aware, immigration only have the one address of mine, the one that we reside in. I have a page stapled in my passport. It indicates my address and that there are 5 of us staying in this address and that I am the reportee. The only other possible address they have is the address that I stayed in when i did the original application. In that case it is a hotel and i only stayed there x days.

 

[ubonjoe]

14 minutes ago, troniccrypt said:

When i arrive back, i arrive back on a tourist visa exemption and ask them to ignore the current Re-Entry permit.

If you tried entering on a visa exempt entry the officer would probably insist on using the re-entry permit. If you had a tourist visa you would stand a better chance of them using it instead of the re-entry permit. You would put the visa number in the space for it on the TM6 arrival card instead of the re-entry permit number.

If you get set up with the BOI there may be a chance things could be done differently. The one stop immigration and  work permit center for BOI companies can do things others cannot do.

 

14 minutes ago, troniccrypt said:

As far as I am aware, immigration only have the one address of mine, the one that we reside in. I have a page stapled in my passport. It indicates my address and that there are 5 of us staying in this address and that I am the reportee.

That sound like a TM30 report receipt. It could be they did not change your address shown in immigrations database when it was submitted. You should check with your local office about the problem.

The address shown now might be the one that the agent used when they applied for your extension.

[troniccrypt]

23 minutes ago, ubonjoe said:

The address shown now might be the one that the agent used when they applied for your extension.

so would that then show on the computer terminal at the immigration in Bangkok airport? Hence the inquiry as to why my TM6 had a different province to the province of the issued extension?

 

So you are saying that I should go to my local immigration office, and check the address that is in the immigration database. That a TM28 needs to completed. Having checked the TM28, that is not one that I am familiar with, so I doubt that it has been done. The form in my passport is a receipt of address notification. That has my address, the one that I stayed in since we have been living in Thailand. Would that address potentially be the one in the immigration system?

 

and i note the TM28 says 24 hours, i am two weeks past that on this current visit and many months past that overall.

[ubonjoe]

Does the top of the receipt look like this. If yes you did a TM30 report.

The may of just filed away the report without changing your address in the database.

When you complete the TM28 you could put any day on it you wanted since they have no way of checking when you moved.

[troniccrypt]

1 minute ago, ubonjoe said:

Does the top of the receipt look like this. If yes you did a TM30 report.

The may of just filed away the report without changing your address in the database.

When you complete the TM28 you could put any day on it you wanted since they have no way of checking when you moved.

Yes. That is exactly what is in my passport. So I shall pop along to immigration and hand in the TM28, that I downloaded from here. I shall put the address as my current address that is the one refered to in the attachment in my passport. 

 

Once that is done, I assume that the immigration computer will then show my correct address and my Tm6 will not cause a query. 

 

Thank you for the assistance. Seems the TM28 and the TM30 are confusing. One would assume that the TM30 should also do the job of the TM28. 

[ubonjoe]

24 minutes ago, troniccrypt said:

Once that is done, I assume that the immigration computer will then show my correct address and my Tm6 will not cause a query.

It should should have your correct address after you do the TM28.

24 minutes ago, troniccrypt said:

Thank you for the assistance. Seems the TM28 and the TM30 are confusing. One would assume that the TM30 should also do the job of the TM28. 

A TM30 form submittal does not change your permanent address since they could be done by hotel and etc while traveling within the country. Those are stored in different database.

Some offices want both forms submitted when changing addresses while others only want a TM30 form.