Transcript of the above video:

As you can see, this is not the usual format I do these videos in. That's because unfortunately right now I have the flu so I can't really do the videos like I would like to do them standing up, and  just going to have to kind of bear with me and I really appreciate it; I hope to be back on my feet next week. 

That said, as the title of this video suggests, we are discussing Tax refunds in Thailand, specifically VAT refunds. I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Tourist VAT refunds made easier. Quoting directly: "The Cabinet on Tuesday approved measures making it easier for foreign tourists to claim Value Added Tax refunds on goods purchased in Thailand. Tourists who buy goods worth less than 20,000 Baht would not to have to show them to Customs Officials during the refund process. Until now, the upper limit was less than 5,000 Baht." So this is a pretty good change I think. For those who are unaware, tourists who come to Thailand and buy things and have to pay VAT, can actually avail themselves of a refund for said VAT. Now it appears that in the past there was sort of a narrower scope of folks who were able to request VAT, request VAT refund without a great deal of quite honestly hassle in terms of sort of this extra inspection. Now it looks like this is being loosened.

I think this is probably a good idea; it will probably end up encouraging some more tourism and I think it will probably be a good idea with regard to just sort of generally kind of encouraging not only tourism but spending money in Thailand within the Thai economy and I don't think anybody would disagree with the fact that is all a good thing. So I definitely think this is something to be happy about with regard to encouragement of Tourism and especially the spending of money by tourists in this economy, that is certainly something to be happy about. If there are any changes with regard to this topic, we will certainly keep you updated on this channel as the situation evolves.