Experiences In Moving To Thailand

[CaptHaddock]

Note the above pgh that I've highlighted.... It pretty well suggests that just keeping a CA drivers license, absent other connections, is not going to pose a CA tax problem.

When you consider the entirety of the above list of criteria, I'd say most people legitimately living in Thailand full-time aren't going to have a problem, assuming they're not running a business or having property ownerships in state.

My preference and my recommendation would be to eliminate the grounds for a tax domicile challenge as much as possible. That's not to say that the risk would be particularly high if you only kept the license, but then the benefit of keeping a CA license in Thailand looks like zero to me as well. Everyone is entitled to his own risk/reward preference, of course.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

AFAIK, having and using a U.S. state-issued driver's license here is both an accepted form of ID as well as conferring some driving rights.

Although I've had an international driving permit every year, whenever I've gone to rent a car in Thailand, the thing the rental people want to see and copy is always my CA driver's license card. (I don't have, and haven't ever applied for, a Thai driver's license, as I don't own or typically drive a car here). But my CA driver's license has always sufficed for Thai car rental purposes.