Surprise! Immigration Check on Foreigners Thai Employees

[gb33]

I own a small 18 worker factory in Bangkok. There are 2 Falang's in the company, both of us have a legit visa and work permit.

Me: I started the company 4 years ago, I have a WP, VISA, Company Registration, VAT registration, 2Million, Cert's ect.. (mounted on the wall of course) all legit, all payroll taxes paid monthly and employees are on contract. My monthly payroll is 400K (+/- overtime).

2nd Falang: He's my IT Director, through my company has a WP, visa.. all the paperwork and is officially working for me. He didn't start working until the WP was ready and visa was complete. After all the immigration and capital requirements we met, he joined the company 3 months ago. He's been on a salary of 55K since then.

As my IT guy, I don't need him to manage the operations of the company, I have him work from home most of the time. I also require him to travel regionally to seminars to support the IT and Software we are going to develop (for the industry I am in). Everything is on the up and up but, I simply distrust government employees (regardless of the country).

Has any TV member experienced this sort of "inspection".. apparently it's happening tomorrow morning but I expect them to arrive any minute.

Recommendations?

Thoughts?

Appreciated! I hate this stuff - its a shake down.

[lopburi3]

Others can answer first hand but such inspections are often reported on forum so do not believe anything special or new. As long as all in order have not seen any reports of issues.

[gb33]

Others can answer first hand but such inspections are often reported on forum so do not believe anything special or new. As long as all in order have not seen any reports of issues.

@ Lopburi - Ive looked at the TV search function for "immigration inspection", however I dont see examples of this type of thing. Do you have a recolletion of a current situation I can read up on?

Thank you.

[evadgib]

Ensure whoever runs your accounts attends & play the ignorant ferang.

CCTV might help too; if they're legit they won't care if they're on film.

HTH

[CharlieH]

MOVED to Business forum

[manarak]

err... OP doesn't contain any description of the actual inspection? What happened exactly?

[impulse]

You may not have wanted to mention what you pay the guy...

Wait for it.. Wait for it...

[craighj]

Hi OP

These types of inspections are not uncommon and my experience are not shake downs. Not to say that does not happen.

As another reply said, best you let one of your trusted Thai's to deal with it and you stay away from the action.

Craighj

[lopburi3]

Sorry do not keep examples as not something concerned with but do recall reading about such inspections and that they were to become more frequent. It seems to be the sham operations that have issues to resolve - if have employees and paperwork reports I read were non events.

The inspection is scheduled for Friday according to first post.

[gb33]

err... OP doesn't contain any description of the actual inspection? What happened exactly?

Inspection is Friday (tomorrow Am). Let's see what happens. I did pick up a lovely bottle of vino at wine connection.

Hopefully, a nice parting gift.

I'll report once complete.

[Orac]

Are you sure it is Immigration - why would they be checking Thai employees?

[ericthai]

Are you sure it is Immigration - why would they be checking Thai employees?

Immigration would be checking Thai employees to make sure they are Thai and not illegal workers such as Burmese, Laos or Khmer.

Typically the department of labor would come to do a check on an ex-pat. We had a factory in Surin and Thai immigration would show up unannounced to check our workers.We had the labor department come on our ex-pat workers in our office in BKK.

We are 100% legit and also have BOI. We never had any issues with govt officials looking for money. A few years ago we moved

our factory to Ratchanburi, since we moved we only have one visit from govt officials. You should have nothing to worry about, if you are 100% legit they cant do anything. No need to give them any gift and i suggest you dont. If you do then they will be expecting all the time and if you do give them something they might start thinking you are doing something wrong and then schedule a complete audit. Which we have gone through that too and that was a big headache for our accountant. Issue was two years in a row we didn't make any revenue as we were developing new products and everything went into that. The Thai officials could not understand how we could have a company and not have a profit.

Let us know how things go, but you should have nothing to worry about. All of our interactions with Thai officials have been good. They have been polite and easy to work with, only time it was difficult was the audit but that was just because it took along time for them to review our books and explain things.

Good Luck!

[ksamuiguy]

Isn't a warrent needed from the court? Use to be.

We have had 2 instances of these "inspections' here at our office.

they arrived in a Van, told them anything they wanted to know go see my book keeper (gave them the contact number)

They insisted they can inspect our office and books, I told them no warrent so you can not.

They left in a huff and never came back and they never contacted our book keeper.

Also had a simular phone call saying they were coming to collect overdue SS. They wanted our location, told them to call our book keeper, they hung up in a huff and never called back or contacted our book keeper.

Strange thing the call was from a cell phone, not 077 local number.

Be careful a lot of scams. We reported this and gave the cell phone number, but no answer and Unregistered,

[recycler]

Some years ago immigrations came with 4 people to check my office on Christmas day....

[Estrada]

I used to work as a consultant from home and as a consultancy work is carried out at customer's factories by my team. I got a visit from immigration and they told me that I wasn't operating a real company as the consultants were not working in my home. They just could not understand that consultants are seconded to work in other companies offices and factories. However the did not shut me down as my paperwork was in order and salaries shown paid to the staff.

[houlicha]

I'm guessing this will turn out to be a twist on the old "wife's family's sick water buffalo" scam.

[realenglish1]

This is common. The fact that they let you know in advance shows it is just a normal inspection

Don't read much into it

[AlQaholic]

Immigration have visited my work place a number of times over the years, nothing out of the ordinary. They come and just want to see that I am carrying my WP with me at work as that is required by law. They also want to make sure with my employer that I actually do the work that is stated in the WP. That is all they do and then they leave. Sometime they have arrived unnanounced but most of the visits are announced beforehand.

[Berkshire]

Good luck to the OP and I'm sure this is just one of those routine inspections. Most likely, to make sure that the OP's company is legit and not just some bogus company created so the foreigner can buy a house. That sort of thing. I'd recommend the OP have his most trusted Thai staff do all the talking.

[jackanapes]

i am afraid this is the nature of the beast all foreign companies go through this procedure you are a legit company you don't need to worry.

[mokwit]

I thought this (a visit) was the norm now.

As I understand it they are looking to see that WP holders are doing the job as described in location described, that Thai employees are real not shadow employees and that there are no other foreigners working there without WP.

[user82374298374]

My guess is that they want to stitch you up for being the 'mastermind' behind the whole Rohingya situation.

;>

[gb33]

All....The visit came and went, everything is good to go.

So, the fella arrived a couple hours late just in time for my trusted Admin Manager to take him to lunch. Apparently the lunch conversation wasnt related to work, mostly personal "do you have kids.. ?" type of chat. Upon arrival to my factory, he sat in my office asked a couple of questions, examined our paperwork (Thai employees, monthly payroll tax records, company registration, job application records) and noted everything was in order. Basically (as many of you stated) he was checking that I have a legitimate company with legitimate employees and the 2 falangs are doing thier jobs. No ghosts.

He was friendly, casually dressed and didnt ask for any tea money. I did offer him a bottle of wine, he appreciated it.

Thanks all! One night of stress is behind me. Its nearly 6pm on Friday, just about time for a single malt!

gb33

[thailandforumaddict]

Do they think that they are pushing foreigners to be legit by doing this kind of things ? So ridiculous they are...

[Berkshire]

All....The visit came and went, everything is good to go.

So, the fella arrived a couple hours late just in time for my trusted Admin Manager to take him to lunch. Apparently the lunch conversation wasnt related to work, mostly personal "do you have kids.. ?" type of chat. Upon arrival to my factory, he sat in my office asked a couple of questions, examined our paperwork (Thai employees, monthly payroll tax records, company registration, job application records) and noted everything was in order. Basically (as many of you stated) he was checking that I have a legitimate company with legitimate employees and the 2 falangs are doing thier jobs. No ghosts.

He was friendly, casually dressed and didnt ask for any tea money. I did offer him a bottle of wine, he appreciated it.

Thanks all! One night of stress is behind me. Its nearly 6pm on Friday, just about time for a single malt!

gb33

Thanks for the update. Glad things went well. As I said, this was just a routine inspection meant to weed out the fake companies. Yours obviously passed the test with flying colors. Perhaps these other guys who bought homes with fake companies should heed--they're on borrowed time.