Will Thailand still be an attractive place for foreigners to live, after abolishing the no foreign income tax rule? Interested to hear how you would do a cost/benefit analysis and come to a conclusion.

I’m pretty sure “no taxes on foreign income” was an enormous perk of living in Thailand for many foreigners. From a quick glance, Thailand’s tax regime isn’t very competitive without this. For example, my guess is that most U.S. citizens would pay more taxes living in Thailand than if they stayed home.

I know there are other factors to consider besides taxes such as cost of living and quality of life. But cost of living isn’t exactly cheap anymore in BKK to maintain a similar lifestyle to back home. There’s dangerous levels of UV radiation, high pollution, unstable government, high import tax, and quality/safety of food ingredients is pretty low imo. Medical services are affordable so that’s still a perk especially if you’re from a country with insane medical costs like the U.S. My hunch is, places like Japan and Korea will become better value than Thailand especially if your wealth is mostly in stocks and you sell that to fund your life/retirement.

I personally don’t think it’s fair that foreigners are able to live in Thailand without paying any taxes to Thailand, but my point is going from paying 0 to high taxes is a huge shift. Will residing in Thailand still be considered a “good deal’ for you? I’m interested in hearing if you’ve done a cost/benefit analysis and your method for coming to a conclusion.

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