Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing this newly created Destination Thailand Visa. We are going to do a little comparison - contrast with the standard Retirement Visa here in Thailand and kind of talking about what is best for different people. 

I know a lot of folks out there are kind of concerned about this from a tax perspective; that strictly speaking will not be the thrust of this video. We are going to compare these two Visas, we are not so much going to compare it from a tax standpoint. I did make another video contemporaneously with this one where we discussed taxes and retirement in conjunction with talking about the DTV Visa but long story short, in this video we are comparing, strictly speaking we are exclusively talking about the Destination Thailand versus a Retirement Visa. 

So our understanding of it, at least at this time, and again it takes a minute for these things to sort of promulgate and sort of the internal memoranda to go down through the system. So all Immigration Systems they don't just stop on a dime and then completely change. It is like changing the course of a boat, it takes a minute. So long story short, and the thing to think about, take away from this video is one, Destination Thailand Visa is by design not meant really for somebody who's living here. Now I do understand that as this is rolling out people are saying "well it's set up in these 6-month intervals; they say we will be able to easily do border runs and things of this nature”, things change. 

Look at the end of the day, the way I look at visas is you have the face value of whatever lawful status you have in a given country at any given moment; that is the way to look at it. So if you really are looking to come to retire here in Thailand permanently, I can see, again depending on people's tax situation, there may be something to the idea of having a DTV. But remember, if that's the case, if that is what you are worried about is the tax issue, then the thing to understand is that again, your physical presence here in Thailand is going to have a lot to do with that and you are going to have to do less than 180 days in a given year to sort of fully extricate yourself if you will from the tax system in terms of getting out from under Tax Residency. 

Again, that is not the only prong of analysis with regard to living and Taxation and doing anything here in Thailand. But long story short, if you are truly going to be a retiree out here, really don't be too worried about the tax situation. Again, in the vast majority of cases and I have talked to a number of clients, this probably, any tax changes that could happen in the forthcoming year I think are going to be very negligible at best in terms of their effect on future retirees. What you have to decide and the thing to take away from this video is - and I went a little more into tax than I would have liked to - so I am going to do another video coming up, stay tuned, where we get more in depth on taxation, the DTV and the Retirement Visa, but we have fully yet to see this thing and until I get a better grasp on it, I don't want to make any videos where I don't at least have some certainty of the detail of knowledge associated with the given visas that we are talking about.