Transcript of the above video:

Approximately a week ago, I did a video where I basically said "hey, we are kind of coming out of all of this lockdown stuff. Thailand is no longer shut down to foreign travel and there is no longer quite the exigent need for really detailed nuanced information just on a regular basis about what is going on with Thai Immigration. Now obviously we are going to continue talking about Thai Immigration policy and procedure as well as just where the rubber hits the road with regard to visas and things but there were like two and a half years in there where what was going on with Immigration both at the airports, how they were dealing with it here in Thailand, that was almost multiple videos every day just because it was changing so quickly. We don't really need to be doing that right now so I asked folks on this channel what would you like me to talk about. I have gotten a fair bit of positive feedback on that including this recent comment which I will quote here. 

Quoting: "Hi I am a Brit. Info about visas, Work Permits to start a small business, bar/coffee shop, general store. You have done so much on Retirement Visas, Thai Laws; change more towards someone who wants a small business." Well we do a fair amount of videos on small businesses. I would urge you to go to the search function on our channel, we are going back 6 years now, I think we are right at 6 years right about now; we have been making videos and if you just punch in "business" in the search function, you are going to get a ton of videos coming back at you. That said, I do kind of forget that we have been doing this for this long and when I think that I have done a video on a topic and that is kind of done and dusted, I kind of forget that yeah I did that three years ago and it is not really just popping up readily on YouTube or even, if you don't know where to look for it, it is probably going to be a hard time finding it so hence the reason I am doing this video.

But yeah, small business startup especially in food and beverage, again me personally I can't really speak to the business side of things, I have never set up one of those operations here in Thailand but I can tell you from the standpoint of sort of legal and admin, things you are going to need to worry about. Yeah, you are going to need to set up a company or buy a company, if you are looking to buy in. Now if you are buying a company here in Thailand that is engaged in food and beverage, it is really a good idea to conduct a due diligence, not only associated with corporate paperwork but also tax compliance on an ongoing basis and ascertain whether or not the business really is as vibrant as it seems on the outside. Now again, that kind of due diligence, business due diligence, isn't really within our bailiwick but from a number of clients I have seen over the years, kind of the best advice in a general sense is take it slow and really take a long hard look if you are looking to buy into a business. Now if you are looking to start one up, in a sense it is kind of easier because you are not having to deal with all that analysis of a pre-existing entity but if you are looking to start something up, then yeah you are going to need to go ahead and set up a corporation. That corporation is then going to need to be tax and labour certified so you can go ahead and then deal with Business Visas and Work Permits and yeah there is ongoing compliance associated with that, ongoing cost. There is no real minimum tax associated with maintaining that status but if you are not generating revenue and paying some taxes over a relatively long period of time, then you are going to have issues associated with maintaining a Work Permit and Business Visa status in an ongoing basis. 

So the thing to take away from this video is yes, starting an SME in Thailand is a fundamentally different thing to just retiring in Thailand because starting up a small business, you are going to be working for it. I can tell you from personal experience, it's difficult to set up a business in a country where you don't particularly speak the language, let alone read and write and then you are also dealing with a lot of corporate documentation in a system that in many ways is fundamentally different than a system you are dealing with if you have been dealing with the US or the British system. I mean even if you were to go from the United States to Britain, there would be little things you have to get used to and how to deal with certain legal aspects and doing business but fundamentally it would be very similar. There are things in Thailand that will just kind of pop up out of the woodwork on you and you won't think, one of the big ones is on top of doing business here, you have also got to maintain your Visa and a Work Permit. Doing that on an ongoing basis has a number of requirements and if you don't have competent legal and accounting professionals behind you to go ahead and provide insight, especially foresight with respect to those issues, you can really find yourself in a really bad situation, sometimes in the situation where you end up owing taxes you didn't know you needed to pay or you end up in a situation where you don't have the documentation you need to maintain your long-term Business Visa and Work Permit status here in the Kingdom of Thailand.