Deported/imprisoned For Working With Out Work Permit?

[inventorinthailand]

1, Have any one heard a REAL CASE were a farang actually have been deported or even imprisoned for violating Work Permit rules?

2, If my friend comes over to my office and trade on the Internet stock market or even make some work that his boss have asked him to do during his visit i thailand, for some weeks. Would i be responsible and thrown in jail for that if some one find out?

3, If i rent out a work station in my office to person or a forign company. Is it on my responsibility to control however they have a valid work permit or not??

[sriracha john]

The penalty for working without a valid work permit in Thailand is basically the same as for overstay:

Jail, fine, deportation and possibly blacklisted from entering the Kingdom again. Read this info: http://www.thaivisa.com/303.0.html

I repeat, there is NO exceptions.

All foreigners need a valid work permit.

About 200 western foreigners per year are deported for illegal work.

[Sunbelt Asia]

1, Have any one heard a REAL CASE were a farang actually have been deported or even imprisoned for violating Work Permit rules?

http://www.stickmanbangkok.com/Weekly2006/weekly265.htm

http://www.huahinmirror.com/

Immigration Police: Busted!

Paitaya Puenpatom/Hua Hin/Mar. 2008

Since the beginning of 2007, charges have been brought in five cases concerning immigration offenses in Hua Hin. Most of those arrested were working without a work permit.

- The German owner of a local restaurant, who has a work permit, hired two Philippine singers who did not have a work permit. Both the owner and the two singers were arrested.

- A Swedish person who was helping his wife to cook in the kitchen of their business was arrested.

- A guesthouse did not make a report within 24 hours and the owner was charged accordingly.

- A German man whose mother is Thai was arrested for serving drinks to his German friends in his mothers business.

- A Thai builder was arrested for hiring two Burmese workers who did not have work permits

2, If my friend comes over to my office and trade on the Internet stock market or even make some work that his boss have asked him to do during his visit i thailand, for some weeks. Would i be responsible and thrown in jail for that if some one find out?

The labor Dept atates "it would be very hard to catch someone working on the internet if when they heard a knock on the door, they clicked away from the webpage. "

3, If i rent out a work station in my office to person or a forign company. Is it on my responsibility to control however they have a valid work permit or not??

As long as you were not the employer or contracted work in anyway with them...consultant, etc. then you are not involved. (If you were just the Landlord, you would be ok.)

www.sunbeltasiagroup.com

[wasabi]

From everyone I've checked with telecommuting is legal without a work permit as long as whomever is paying your check is not at all affiliated with Thailand. the point of the law is to protect the job market for Thai people and to assure Thai taxes are paid. If you are telecommuting overseas you are not affecting either. However you still must be in Thailand on a legitimate visa.

[inventorinthailand]

From everyone I've checked with telecommuting is legal without a work permit as long as whomever is paying your check is not at all affiliated with Thailand. the point of the law is to protect the job market for Thai people and to assure Thai taxes are paid. If you are telecommuting overseas you are not affecting either.

How to check if this statement is true??

Edited May 14, 2008 by inventorinthailand

[EmptyMind]

From everyone I've checked with telecommuting is legal without a work permit as long as whomever is paying your check is not at all affiliated with Thailand. the point of the law is to protect the job market for Thai people and to assure Thai taxes are paid. If you are telecommuting overseas you are not affecting either.

How to check if this statement is true??

I think if you can find a true legal answer to that question you will win an award

[inventorinthailand]

From everyone I've checked with telecommuting is legal without a work permit as long as whomever is paying your check is not at all affiliated with Thailand. the point of the law is to protect the job market for Thai people and to assure Thai taxes are paid. If you are telecommuting overseas you are not affecting either.

How to check if this statement is true??

I think if you can find a true legal answer to that question you will win an award

But it should be able to find any precedential court case in this matter.

Edited May 14, 2008 by inventorinthailand

[Prakanong]

From everyone I've checked with telecommuting is legal without a work permit as long as whomever is paying your check is not at all affiliated with Thailand. the point of the law is to protect the job market for Thai people and to assure Thai taxes are paid. If you are telecommuting overseas you are not affecting either.

How to check if this statement is true??

I think if you can find a true legal answer to that question you will win an award

But it should be able to find any precedential court case in this matter.

If you find that too you will get an award

[TAWP]

AFAIK Thailand doesn't employ case law and therefor a court case might not rule a definite verdict on it?

[jstumbo]

From everyone I've checked with telecommuting is legal without a work permit as long as whomever is paying your check is not at all affiliated with Thailand. the point of the law is to protect the job market for Thai people and to assure Thai taxes are paid. If you are telecommuting overseas you are not affecting either. However you still must be in Thailand on a legitimate visa.

And are all the experts that you have consulted telecommuting over the internet? It is pretty clear, if you are working in Thailand, then you need a work permit. No stipulations that if it is not affiliated with Thailand that I am aware of.

What would be the difference between a person working on the Internet, selling their services to some offshore company and a person who buys materials from offshore, has them shipped to their home in Thailand, turns the material into some product which is then shipped to an offshore customer. After they ship the items to the customer, then money is deposited in their offshore account. Would you also say that this person is not working in Thailand?

I do not understand why people think just because they are working on the Internet that they are not working in Thailand. You are working wherever you are physically sitting. If you sit in your house in your home country, working on the Internet, would you say that you do not work from home? Afterall, you are working via the Internet, so you must not be working from home? If you watch a football match on your tv in you home, are you not watching tv at home? I guess you are watching TV on the airwaves, and are not physically in your home when you do it?

That being said, getting caught while sitting in your home is going to be very difficult.

[inventorinthailand]

AFAIK Thailand doesn't employ case law and therefor a court case might not rule a definite verdict on it?

AFAIK ???

It is hard to belief that they can put foreigners in jail without a court order.

I know so many people who works without a WP and NO ONE have not heard anyone that got busted for it. The only thing most people talks about is that they have "heard stories" about bar owners that have got busted but nothing concrete.

[TAWP]

AFAIK = As Far As I Know.

Meaning: I'm fairly up to date with US laws, very up to date with my home countries laws (and relative as ADA and so on), but not so much with Thai laws. But from what I think I heard...

I'm here assuming that you know what case law means.

[bendix]

In my opinion, it doesnt happen enough.

My biggest criticism of Thailand is that it has the right laws, but they just arent enforced because of official ineptitude and laziness (at best) and corruption (at worst).

WP violations, and overstayers would be first on the list ..

[sriracha john]

I know so many people who works without a WP and NO ONE have not heard anyone that got busted for it.

Give Post #3 a good thorough read.

[sweetchariot]

I know a guy in Pattaya who was arrested for serving drinks in his bar following a tip off from a disgruntled competitor. It cost him 150,000 to buy himself out of that.

I also know 2 guys who got busted for running an exporting business. Funnily enough the police weren't as interested in their WP status as they were in the 3 million baht's worth of Golden Virginia that they were exporting hidden in furniture. That cost them 7 million between them (serves them right), the best bit was once it was all settled the police asked them if they would like to buy the tobacco back - at an inflated price of course

[inventorinthailand]

I know so many people who works without a WP and NO ONE have not heard anyone that got busted for it.

Give Post #3 a good thorough read.

Sorry, arrested ok. But it would be interesting to know what kind of penalty they got, if any.

[Sunbelt Asia]

I know so many people who works without a WP and NO ONE have not heard anyone that got busted for it.

Give Post #3 a good thorough read.

Sorry, arrested ok. But it would be interesting to know what kind of penalty they got, if any.

From Post #3

http://www.stickmanbangkok.com/Weekly2006/weekly265.htm

Barry Kenyon the Honorary Consul (Pattaya) for the British Embassy in a Q&A....

Chonburi is not known as the easiest place in Thailand to get a work permit and there are a lot of foreigners working here without the little blue book. Do many foreigners have problems related to this?

They do, not because they cannot get one, but because they have not applied for it in the first place. The work permit is about paying tax and capital investment in a company. The people who get in trouble are often the people who would not be able to apply for a work permit, or because they have not put sufficient capital in, or do not even know about it. Or perhaps they work in a sector where you cannot get a work permit, such as a gogo bar. It is very difficult to get a work permit to work in a gogo bar.

But generally, if your application is in order, it should be ok. A lot of people are married to a Thai and think having a work permit doesn't matter. Just because you are married to a Thai does not excuse you. The Alien Labour Act 1980 applies.

What's the typical penalty?

There is little point pleading not guilty! The penalty will be quite small in the sense that the Thai courts will fine you or 2,000 - 3,000 baht. If you can pay it, which they rarely can, because they are often on overstay, you will not be let out, but rather you will be deported. If not, you have to wait in the jail until someone comes up with the money. There is one jail in Bangkok, the Immigration Detention Centre, where they end up.

What about if you just don't have the money, or the means to raise it?

You can pay it off by spending time in the prison cell. The rate is 200 baht per day. So a 2,000 baht fine would be 10 days.

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The biggest problem is paying for the cost of the airfare to your home country and getting a flight. Then the threat of not being able to come back to Thailand. It's up to the discretion of Immigration.

If you are allowed back, you can not apply for a work permit for one year after you committed a crime with Labor Laws in Thailand.

www.sunbeltasiagroup.com

[inventorinthailand]

There is little point pleading not guilty! The penalty will be quite small in the sense that the Thai courts will fine you or 2,000 - 3,000 baht. If you can pay it, which they rarely can, because they are often on overstay, you will not be let out, but rather you will be deported. If not, you have to wait in the jail until someone comes up with the money. There is one jail in Bangkok, the Immigration Detention Centre, where they end up.

Does this mean that you get to pay the fine of 2000-3000 baht and then have to leave the country... Is this the most common punishment if your visa is in order and you have no overstays??