Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing the Board of Investment here in Thailand and increasingly cumbersome requirements associated with documentation pertaining to visa and ongoing work authorization extension associated therewith. For those who are unaware, the Board of Investment is a body in Thailand that essentially approves concessions, be they tax concession, certain concessions associated with Work Permits on a given enterprise. There are they are even concessions related to land ownership for companies that might even be foreign owned that the land can be owned outright by the company, and it can be issued a Foreign Business Certificate that allows foreign ownership of both the company and allowing land to be owned through the company, so long as the company continues in its BOI approved activity. 

So there are a lot of benefits that can be conferred by BOI and BOI specifically has a provision in the Immigration Act of 1979 which permits it to issue certain types of visas under their own criteria. But those criteria are different and, in some ways, more cumbersome than dealing with standard Business Visas, just in a general sense. 

I thought of making this video after reading a couple of comments on a recent video I made. I'll go ahead and throw this up on screen. "BOI now requesting education documents again after 12 years. WTF, I'm done with this place. FYI, I work in IT." - and then the person went on to reply to themselves - "I've spent the last 3 weekends and work days transferring my Visa to new passport. So much BS... my bank account needed verification of where I work. Could not transact. My credit card not renewed. My phone had to visit shop and bank for face scan. Been legal BOI for 12+ years. Its clear as day they are targeting all Farang. I'm tired and fed up, looking to jump ship. This one is sinking fast." Well I don't agree with that and no I don't think they are targeting all Farang. 

We have talked about visiting the banks for the face scans and stuff; I totally get that. That's not coming from BOI though. As I have talked about in other videos, we didn't see any of that until in the last government - especially the Rump Coalition Government as I called it - when the then Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra was meeting with a World Economic Forum envoy in the Purple Room to discuss God knows what, making the rest of our lives harder, or how someday we are all going to own nothing and be happy or whatever it is these people talk about. No, the bank stuff is coming from there. As well as now supposedly we are all supposed to be overjoyed because Thailand is going to become part of the OECD maybe by 2028. My hope is that Thai folks see the air in the folly of this because it's not going to do any good for Thailand. I don't see what benefit is going to be accrued to the Thais by ending up in all this OECD stuff. That being said, let's set that aside for the moment. The point being, again across the board we are seeing heightened scrutiny associated with Business Visas. 

My thing is why are we seeing heightened scrutiny associated with somebody that has been here 12+ years and is operating legally; presumably is paying taxes. And then meanwhile, a lot of folks are coming in under these new visas that have no particular criteria associated with them whatsoever. It's just this sort of nebulous, 'oh, you can kind of be here, but you can't work here but you're here' - it doesn't make a lot of sense to me. As I've discussed in other videos, I think it's bad policy. That said, dealing with BOI generally speaking can be something of an administrative vexation for lack of a better term, it's complicated. BOI, as well as everything associated with bureaucracy here in Thailand could be described as Byzantine. 

For those who find themselves overwhelmed by these matters, it may not be a terrible idea to contact a legal professional, gain some insight and guidance into how best to proceed.