Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing sort of the long-term cost-benefit analysis of Thai Company set up. I have a lot of people that ask me this and I am always hard pressed to respond because the response I want to give is "look, it is going to heavily depend on you," and we are talking about this in an SME context. We are talking about folks that come over here, they set up a small company, restaurant, coffee shop; a lot folks set up as consultants here and they may do work for international businesses, they may do work for international clients. I know a lot of folks that work in the tech industry, they work online but they set up a company for themselves over here.

Long-term cost benefit analysis: yes there are ongoing costs associated with not only legal compliance but tax compliance and regulatory compliance associated with maintaining a business in Thailand. Meanwhile, if you are a foreign national, you have got to maintain a Business Visa and a Work Permit; we have talked about that at length. But in the longer term, I think it is worth noting that setting up a Thai Company could be a path for example to Thai Permanent Residence. If you maintain your status in Thailand for long enough to gain that Permanent Residence it could be a path to citizenship as well in the longer term. So yes there are ongoing costs, of that there are no doubt and they are quantifiable although trying to quantify exactly what your tax liabilities are going to be into the future, that can be hard to foresee. 

The thing to take away from this video is it's not all cost and I do see that it is kind of a long tunnel but at the end of it, when you get a few years into Thailand there could be some serious benefits not least of which is Permanent Residence. Permanent Residence is a substantial benefit. It basically says hey look, you are not dealing with visas anymore; you are not dealing with 90-day reporting anymore; you are not dealing with TM30 anymore. You are not covered under that portion of the Act, you are covered under the other section of the Act pertaining to immigrants. You are really done worrying about Immigration on a day-to-day or year to year basis. The only time you are really going to be dealing with them is maybe if you leave the country you have got to get an Immigrant Visa to go ahead and deal with that. But again, the thing to take away from this video is yes there are costs associated with setting up a company and doing business in Thailand but there are also benefits.