Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing whether or not the Thai Visa Exemption is effectively operating as a loophole for illegally working here in the Kingdom of Thailand. I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Bangkok Post, that is bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Foreign Crackdown pushed. Quoting directly: "Paisarn Suethanuwong, a Committee member of the Professional Tourist Guides Association of Thailand, said the Thai Tourism Industry lacks strong law enforcement against illegal actions committed by foreigners." 

Yeah, don't I know it, especially in the context of these foreign tax stamp-pimps who are coming into Thailand causing all sorts of untold damage and fake foreign professionals, all these nonsensical charlatans that shouldn't be here at all. They are causing all sorts of damage to foreigners who are just looking to do things right here in Thailand because they detrimentally rely on charlatans and frauds. 

That said, quoting further: "For many years local guides have faced competition from foreign guides employed by tour companies to serve foreign tourists, especially in the Chinese market, he said. Quote: "Allowing illegal foreign guides to persist in major destinations opened the door to other nominee businesses including tour companies, transport and real estate, causing local operators to lose income," said Mr. Paisarn. He said some officials are believed to be helping these foreigners. For instance, despite clear evidence, Mr. Paisarn said Officers only warned foreigners caught acting as tour guides and let them go, with the police claiming they were just a group of friends travelling and were not working as tour guides." 

Just FYI to folks who may take that as like some sort of prompt to go ahead and do this because you can get away with it with impunity, the fact that this is coming out now means that the public is pretty upset about it, means that you will see some sort of reaction from Law Enforcement. So don't think that me reading this stuff is like, "oh hey, now we can go out and do it." If anything, this is marking the end possibly, I think, of this at least phase of people doing this. That said, quoting further: "Similar cases involving foreigners are not prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, he said. At the airport, foreigners freely served foreign tourists without any inspection by authorities, said Mr. Paisarn. He said the current 60-day Visa free scheme for tourists from 93 nations offers a loophole for foreigners to work illegally in the country." Yeah, I have a really hard time arguing with him on that because it looks like that is kind of what has happened.

In any event, the point I am trying to make with regard to what's going on here is first, while I would say yeah, the 60-day Exemption probably plays a role in what's going on here, more what's going on here is just foreigners flouting the law in Thailand on working, okay. It's not the Exemption Stamp itself that is acting as the loophole, it's people are just flouting Thai Law. They are aware of it presumably, especially this stuff is all over the internet now, and they just don't care. Now as we see in that article - and I urge those who are watching this video, go check out that article for more detail - but it looks to me like we are going to see probably a rather major reaction here and probably something akin to a Crackdown moving forward. We usually see this going into low season. We're now sitting here at the beginning of March right at about the middle of March is really where you call the low season to truly to have begun if you will. So we are sort of at the twilight of the high season. This is about the time we see these changes in paradigm, and then subsequent to that, we see changes in policy. Expect more and those who are looking to come to Thailand, you need to get a Work Permit if you want to work here in the Kingdom. And by the way, the DTV, even though they talk a whole lot of stuff about how it works, again as we discussed, the Ministry of Interior has gone on record, we cited it, where they actually state "Hey you cannot go ahead and work in Thailand with a DTV if it impinges upon the local economy". And then meanwhile, there's a specific section, specifically Section 12 of the Immigration Act which we will get into in another video, which again how does that interact with the DTV.

So that stated, and the thing to take away from this video is look, expect we are probably going to see more crackdown-like conditions especially pertaining to foreigners working here in the Kingdom of Thailand moving forward.