Thai Social Security Program

[Misty]

Today the Thai Social Security Dept. refused to allow our company's two directors (who are also full time employees) to apply for Social Security benefits. They told our representative that under a new policy (or regulation?), company directors are no longer allowed benefits--even if they are in fact employees of the company--because the Thai Social Security system has had a huge increase in the amount of benefits being claimed, and that they have no way to differentiate between Directors that collect a nominal fee for doing nothing, and those that are in fact full time employees.

Is this in fact a new policy? Supposedly it applies to anyone, Thai or foreign national. (It sounds very fishy to me, as our two Directors have employee contracts and work more than full time jobs--and should therefore qualify as Company Employees.)

On the one hand, our Directors are unlikely to actually use the Thai Social Security system as they have their own private health care policies. The company would in fact BENEFIT by not having to make the monthly social security payments.

But I don't want to find out at a later date that this is wrong and they were in fact REQUIRED to be registered and that they or the company is then penalized.

Anyone heard of any of this?

[samran]

Dunno, but there are waiting periods before you can claim benefits. And if you haven't been paying in for the requisite time...forget it.

[~G~]

Sounds very strange. I am the Managing Director of my company as well as an employee, and make the monthly social security payments.

[Misty]

Sounds very strange. I am the Managing Director of my company as well as an employee, and make the monthly social security payments.

Our company rep was told this is a brand new policy or regulation--so it only supposedly affects director/employees that go to register for the first time now. Unfortunately, we cannot find any evidence of such a policy/reg in writing. Anyone heard of this, or know where the mysterious regulation can be found? I'd just like to keep a copy of it on file, in case at some point some gov't official tries to make trouble because the directors are not registered or paying in to the Social Security program.

[KronbergTH]

Yes, if the directors are not employed by other investors, they can be denied to get insurance. But if you can prove by showing the shareholder list that they in reality are minor shareholders, and if you confirm that they are working eight hours every day, they cannot deny.

[Misty]

Thanks, KrongbergTH

The Directors are the major shareholders, and they are not working for anyone else. They do seem to work a large percentage of their waking hours at this point.

It sounds like you are a bit familiar with this--if possible, please can you tell me:

--Is registering for Thai Social Security in fact optional? We've been told that they HAD to register--even on the TV forum there are threads saying if you're employed in Thailand, you must register and pay social security. (In reality the Directors don't really want to register, as they're unlikely to use the benefits themselves--it's just money out the door to them)

--Is this policy of Directors not being allowed to register available in writing (Thai or English--we've been unable to find it on the SS Fund website). We'd really like to keep a copy of this policy to prevent further confusion down the line.

Cheers! Misty

[wolfmanjack]

I just tried to sign up for social insurance and my accountant told me i can not since i am listed as the managing director.

I wanted to sign up since they have the same private hospital i go to on the list of available hospitals.