I realize I'm treading a thin line with this post, but I'm sure there are many people with the same question. Just ask the farangs who teach English freelance (no work permit) and end up in jail, even though they aren't taking work away from Thais and if anything are benefiting them.

So, the question: I've been corresponding with a company in Thailand to write articles. I'm in America now but hope to move to Thailand in the medium-term future. How would I get paid by the Thai company while living in America and after moving to Thailand without leaving a paper trail which could result in being barred from the country or jailed after moving there for not having a work permit?

Thanks for any information or advice.

For the work you did when you where in the US you don't need a work permit. The apper work should show the date of when completed the work/delivered the work, which should make clear that you weren't in Thailand at that time.

Once you start living here you will need a work permit to work.

my suggestion is make sure that you set-up a PayPal account with a USA bank while you are still in the USA... use that for your payments and easy access to your USA account.

Then, if you can work with the Thai company -- who in most cases would not be likely to give you a work permit based upon a free-lance arrangement -- I would make sure that you spend enough time outside of Thailand (Laos, Singapore, VN. etc.) such that you could claim that all of your actual writing work was done while you are ex-Thailand ... Once you are here in Thailand you can find out the best Visa arrangement to do the above -- dual entry tourist visas are free for the time being -

Do you need to tell the company that you are working for that you are in Thailand?