New Elite Card allows holders to work in Thailand – for 32 million baht

[mokwit]

7 hours ago, cncltd1973 said:

I bet if you read the fine print, it's the price to pay if you want to launder money through Thailand. I imagine the people that will pay $1m won't be the people that actually work an honest living. There's way too much dirty $ in the world and people have to get creative to clean it up. $1m is nothing compared to the estimated $1.6t in dirty money, it's just the price to pay to sit at the table for these scumbags...

Seems this got fast tracked to coincide with UK's action on "Golden Visas" used by Russians.

[Oxx]

5 hours ago, Soikhaonoiken said:

This is what they call bribery... 

You give us 32 Million Baht,  and we will give you a piece of paper

This (along with many other posts) is blatantly misrepresenting the situation.  You're not spending or giving 32 million baht - you are investing it.  When you no longer need the visa or the visa expires you can sell your investments.  Along the way you can take the income (and presumably capital gains) from your investments.

[DLock]

People who have 32million to waste on a dumb work permit...don't need a dumb work permit.

 

...when you can set up a Thai company, hire 4 of your domestic staff, get a WP and have your lawyer do your 90-day reporting and only turn up at immigration once a year to show your face. to get that WP...

 

If you really want, buy a Thai Elite visa for whatever it costs now and be done with it for 5 years.

 

Fail.

[Oxx]

59 minutes ago, DLock said:

People who have 32million to waste on a dumb work permit

Again, an egregious distortion.  It's not wasted, it's invested.  And you get the investment back at the end, plus any gains.

[Mr Meeseeks]

13 hours ago, ericthai said:

20+ years ago sure using visa exempt (not visa on arrival) you could do boarder runs like this, but those days are gone. The govt cracked down on that looong ago. You can get by with a few boarder hops but trying to stay 1yr plus on visa exempt doing boarder runs will no longer work.

No need to do border runs, 30 day stamps could be renewed without even leaving the country using certain agents.

 

Not strictly legal, but never a problem with visas until Thaksin came along and stopped it all. 

 

Even 12 month non-immigrant visas could be obtained without going anywhere. 

 

Halcyon days. 

[Kwaibill]

You could "buy" a wife for less than 32,000,000 baht, then have plenty left over to pay a legal firm to handle the yearly renewal of your "permission to stay".

My wife ( whom I certainly did not "buy"!????) and I handle it ourselves. A little tricky for us first time around to get 400,000 baht in the bank all at once, but can show the requisite monthly foreign deposits in the bank book for future endeavors, given that the US embassy is completely useless re: certifying Social Security income, paid by the US government.

[crisp]

If you can afford 32 million why would you want to work?