Every now and then Immigration releases some information about ever-evolving visa regulations and at first glance all of us that struggle with visas get excited.... until we dig into the details and realize that once again, this visa will be applicable to almost no one.
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I will be the first to admit that the major reason why I continue to work my part-time job as an English teacher is not because of the lackluster wages or because I even enjoy the job. I don't like it and the pay is shite. I do it because by keeping this employment I am able to effortlessly keep a visa that never ends until I conclude my employment. The school is almost certainly aware of this and they don't seem to care because I perform my duties in a better-than-average way and I am always on time. The fact that the kids seem to be learning a thing or two is just an added bonus I suppose. If the visa did not come along with this job I would quit immediately and I think all schools like the one I work at are very aware of this and this is why they don't even try to have competitive wages.
Like most anyone else that is living here, I make most of my money by working online and if it was an option, I would quit at the school and just work online exclusively. There are a lot of people here that do this but this comes along with them always having the fear of not getting another visa. Many of them go to immigration to see what their options are and find out that they don't have any and that Thailand isn't going to give them another visa. When this happens these people will scramble to find a place to go and lately, the popular places have been Vietnam or the Philippines who have recently made a digital nomad visa available for people in low-wage online jobs like teaching.
Thailand introduced a "digital nomad visa" some years ago and when the news hit, a lot of people were excited. Could it be that the country is going to embrace the relatively affluent online working audience? Well, it only took a little bit of investigating to find out that the answer to that was "no." In order to qualify for this visa you had to provide pay stubs (or the equivalent) totaling over $60,000 annual income from a singular employer. Virtually nobody has this sort of job. The teachers don't make anywhere near this much money and the people who do make this sort of cash are freelance programmers or copywriters that work for dozens of different entities, and many of them are working on pay that is probably a bit dodgy to being with: IE, they are not paying any taxes.
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When the EEC (Eastern Economic Corridor) disclosed a new 10-year visa program for workers in Thailand that will pay a flat rate of 17% tax to Thailand my reaction was "ok, let's go see how I don't qualify for this one." I was right. The conditions are absurd and this will apply to almost no one.
The first paragraph basically told me all that I needed to know about how this was not going to include me
It encompasses four distinct categories catering to specialists, executives, professionals, and their families.
So who will this really apply to? Well as you might expect it is mostly going to apply to people that wouldn't need the visa in the first place. It will be available to people that already make boatloads of money in very rare jobs such as being the CEO of a company. While I am not a business magnate I can already see that this visa is designed to help very high-earning executives and opportunity to change where they do business in order to dodge taxes in whatever country they are operating in right now. 17% is not a lot of tax for someone that is pulling down hundreds of thousands of dollars in wages every year and for these few individuals, they might be willing to go through the process in order to save a ton of money.
I don't like that the world operates this way. There are hundreds of thousands of digital nomads that make normal amounts of money in the range of say $30,000 - $50,000 per year but there are no long term visa options for them at all. The only option that you have if you are one of those people is to find a job like mine where you work 15 hours a month in a classroom doing a job that hopefully you don't hate, for wages that are so low that they aren't really even worth talking about.
This is kind of a disservice to the kids as well because the teachers that take these jobs are doing it ONLY for the visa. They are not at all concerned with whether or not the kids actually get a good education and at my school and many others that I am aware of, the administration isn't even capable of assessing whether or not I am doing a good job. In the meantime the tax money that is spent to employ someone like me is likely pocketed by the principal (headmaster) of the school and they doctor the paperwork to make it appear as though the money is going to me each month. This is likely why I am not hassled about my performance because the admin merely needs a living human to fill the position that will sign the pay slips at the end of the month. I don't kick up a fuss about my wages, and they don't kick up a fuss about my performance. It's sad really.
I think this is a reflection of how much the world, even in poorer countries like Thailand, that the system isn't designed to benefit anyone except the wealthy. This 10-year visa is only being offered to people who do not need it and would only be using it in order to bamboozle the taxation service of whatever country they are currently based out of. It's tough to have a good world-view and think that any government is actually looking out for anyone when policies like this get thrown around year after year.
So for all of you "normal people" out there that are looking for a way to get a reasonable visa to live in Thailand I'm afraid that most of you are still fucked.