Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing, well we have discussed this for about a year, a year and a half now but they keep talking about this so-called Tourist Tax. I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Pattaya Mail, that is pattayamail.com, the article is titled: Yet another new date for introduction of Thai tax on foreign visitors. Quoting directly: "The fifth provisional date for the start of the long delayed 300 Baht (US$9) levy on virtually all international arrivals by land, sea and air is June 1, 2023. The Tourist Ministry, announcing the revenue-raising ploy, pointed out that the introduction depended on Cabinet approval and publication in The Royal Gazette before the current Government coalition calls a general election due not later than early May." So this is kind of another one of these stories that gets out there that on the surface it is like a done deal but it is really not. I am going to quote again: "pointed out that the introduction depended on Cabinet approval" which is pending, it doesn't have it yet, that's no mean fee "and publication in the Royal Gazette" again hasn't happened yet. So this isn't really slated to be on the books strictly speaking.

So again, I have talked about this a lot in other videos. I don't think this is a great idea. I think whatever shortfalls Thailand is trying to make up, I think it's a bad idea to directly tax tourists. I think it is better to find some way to regain tax revenue in some other way and there are ways to do it. They have introduced for example new commodities onto the Thai market that especially the tourists are going to be interested in; we are now kicking back up after two and a half years to actually seeing a tourism sector that is actually functional, so as a practical matter I think there are going to be myriad ways for Thai Officials to go ahead and find some revenue for tax purposes. That being said it's not going to be something that's particularly going to happen overnight. My personal opinion is, not a great idea to go ahead and kill the golden goose so to speak by going ahead and taxing tourists because that is exactly the demographic of people that are actually bringing in money so sort of discouraging or dissuading them would be a terrible idea in my opinion. 

So the thing to take away from this video, as of now they are still talking about this. The press still makes it seem like it is sort of a foregone conclusion but the fact the matter is there has been no Cabinet resolution; this has not been published in The Royal Gazette so it simply remains something that they are discussing on a policy level.