On 7/31/2025 at 7:36 AM, Purdey said:

A strange occurrence last year. I was leaving through DM to Vietnam and the immigration officer was examining my passport and PR booklet and looking confused. I asked if there was an issue I could help with. 

He said I had an expired re-entry permit that had not been used. I said that's right, it was during COVID and I decided not to travel.

He said that I should have had the re-entry permit cancelled.

Why? 

Because if you don't use it you should have it cancelled. So I asked, not using it means it expired anyway. No, he says, I had to officially cancel it.

People behind me were shuffling their feet impatiently. Eventually, a nice immigration lady was brought in and she cancelled it on the spot, telling me it should have been cancelled but not too worry, it was done now. 

Let that be a lesson to anyone who is in a hurry to go to the departure gate.

 

The nice immigration lady was just trying to save face for her confused underling. 

One of the fundamental concepts of of levying and collecting taxes is expediency. Chasing taxpayers for money they don't want to pay is costly and inefficient.

 

That is why we have taxes such as the land transfer tax/stamp duty and the re-entry permit fee and many more. In order to achieve what you want to do, you need to pay the government. If you don't pay, you don't get what you want. So, all the government has to do is have its tax-collecting officials sit in the relevant office and wait for the public and the funds to flow in.

2 hours ago, Briggsy said:

That is why we have taxes such as the land transfer tax/stamp duty and the re-entry permit fee and many more.

That all makes sense, however why not immigration charge 5700baht for annual extension that includes multi entry (1900+3800) 

Lot more simple and the end result would be net gain in revenue. Everyone on annual extensions would have reentry option weather they need it or not. 

Clearly they are not money driven. 

 

Rather they make the reentry permit an optional purchase. 

Very nice of them. 

4 hours ago, DrJack54 said:

That all makes sense, however why not immigration charge 5700baht for annual extension that includes multi entry (1900+3800) 

Good idea.

 

I think the 1900 Baht extension fee is written into the legislation and would require a legislative change. This may well be true for the re-entry permit cost too. 

 

I can imagine the howls of protest from the 30-day extension crowd having to pay 5700 Baht and getting a multi re-entry thrown in! (Snigger) 😛