Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing living and working here in Thailand. People sometimes ask me what tips I would give. Well first of all, everybody is different. So if you are talking to us, sort of doing consultation with us here in the office, what I may say to one person may be totally different than what I say to somebody else, depending on their circumstances.

But some basic tips for living and working in Thailand is first to understand, if you want to work in Thailand yeah indeed you are going to have to get a Work Permit, so you have got to deal with how to get work authorization. Otherwise you can end up in some really serious problems most notably detained, fined, even deported, possibly blacklisted for working illegally in Thailand. 

The other tip I would really give to folks though about living here, make the decision you want to live here, and then move from that. This really is, I don't mean to sound sort of contrite or just giving out platitudes, empty platitudes, but there really is something to this. The first year roughly I was here, I was very much scouting out Thailand. Did I want to live here? What did I want to do? It wasn't until about year two that I had really said "yes I indeed want to live full time in Thailand." Then at that point, I started making concrete plans for things like Visa status on a year to year basis, work authorization status on a year to year basis and then getting into things like ultimately looking down the road to Thai Permanent Residence, Thai Citizenship, but you have to start from the decision "do you want to live here?" And again you shouldn't think of making that decision before you have ever been here. So folks that are watching this video and saying "yeah I have heard it would be cool to live and work in Thailand, now I really want to live there, after I have read about it on the internet." You need to live here first; you need to be here a while. I don't know exactly what a while is. It is more than a day; it is probably less than 10 years but it's probably somewhere around that 2 year mark. It is a bit nebulous, but somewhere in those first two years roughly a year, 18 months, maybe 24 months, you need to decide well if you are thinking of living here and you decide to live here you should do it in that time period after you get a good feeling for what it is like to live here. Then from that point moving forward, it is a good idea to go ahead and then make arrangements to get yourself into a vehicle if you will, be it a corporation, setting up a company, doing business here or maybe you are a little bit older, "do I want to get into some kind of long-term Visa status for retirement?" Again these are decisions you have to make once you decide to live here. But as far as living and working, yeah things like "well I need to go ahead and look at setting up a company and getting a Work Permit, dealing with taxes and all that good stuff". Yeah you will and I think long term especially taxes are going to be increasingly important for maintaining long-term status. Exactly what that looks like remains to be seen but we will certainly keep you updated on this channel as the situation evolves.