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Working Remotely From A Tropical Island In Thailand

blog.mobilejazz.com

141–150 of 197 posts

Re: Working Remotely From A Tropical Island In Thailand

#141
post #24

My company works 100% remotely, and some people have lives more compatible with adventures like this than others. Most people will travel freely, working from wherever they are. We don't even tell each other when we travel for the most part... in our day to day operations, it just doesn't matter if I am in my home office, in my parent's kitchen in Florida, or in a hotel in another country. But we also do all have fam…

That was one of the problems we actually described in our blog post about the Thailand experience. It took as us while to actually find out rhythm (simple things like finding food, doing laundry, etc.) and that was taking a lot of our energy and time in the beginning. And then once you're set up and feel 'home' in that new place it's already time to leave again. So the biggest learning experience for us is to stay lo…

>That was one of the problems we actually described in our blog post about the Thailand experience. It took as us while to actually find out rhythm (simple things like finding food, doing laundry, etc.) and that was taking a lot of our energy and time in the beginning.

Would it not be wise then to send someone ahead to scope these things out? As in, you're planning to have a team move to X, send someone to X two weeks in advance to sort out logistics, get internet dongles, map out places to eat, do laundry, etc?

Rather than having whole teams trying to sort it out on arrival.

I think what you've offered is great btw. The criticism being leveled on you here is pretty unfair and I'm not sure what is behind it. It's of great benefit to the locals to have westerners on western salaries come in for a month or two, spend maniacally on local resources and then leave.

The argument against it is well you should be incorporating there and providing the locals with jobs and that's nice in theory but unfeasible in reality, and all those tourist bucks create and supply the locals with plenty of jobs in themselves.

Re: Working Remotely From A Tropical Island In Thailand

#142
post #42
post #8

I'm in Puerto Rico, moved here from the states two years ago. There are a number of tax incentives for people wanting to start tech companies here. Google Puerto Rico Act 20. Short version: "Act 20 offers a four (4)% corporate tax rate for Puerto Rican businesses providing services for exportation, 100% tax-exempt dividends from earnings and profits derived from the export services income of eligible businesses, and…

I just traveled there for a vacation and fell in love. Any places to look for those wanting to find jobs in PR?

clasificadosonline.com is the place locally to seek/post jobs. Use Chrome's translate if needed.

Re: Working Remotely From A Tropical Island In Thailand

#143
post #128
post #8

I'm in Puerto Rico, moved here from the states two years ago. There are a number of tax incentives for people wanting to start tech companies here. Google Puerto Rico Act 20. Short version: "Act 20 offers a four (4)% corporate tax rate for Puerto Rican businesses providing services for exportation, 100% tax-exempt dividends from earnings and profits derived from the export services income of eligible businesses, and…

>Besides the tax benefits there are a lot of other things to like here. How does the tax work? It's part of US territory, so are you paying your income tax to the US as you usually would while earning in the US? Or are you resident there and your earnings subject to taxes in PR? Aside from that, as a US citizen are you not still obliged to pay the IRS the taxes on a certain amount of earnings made outside the US?

Puerto Rico has a unique relationship with the U.S. when it comes to taxes. A Puerto Rico corporation can do business with a U.S. corp and not pay any U.S. taxes. The employees of the PR corp that are residents in PR only pay PR taxes not IRS taxes.

I posted my email address to another comment here. If you are interested send me an email and I will put you in contact with a tax accountant here and a few others that work on this.

Re: Working Remotely From A Tropical Island In Thailand

#144
post #77
post #66

[deleted]

There are definitely coworking spaces. I just spent two weeks working out of Kohub on Koh Lanta. Had a great time and even ran into the creator of the framework I specialize in, he was on the same island. Hung out with some guys working on a Bitcoin startup, some other freelancers. Had a great time.

Hey, I think I met you there, was with my buddy Kevin (looks like an Asian version of Hurley from Lost). Kohub and Lanta was a blast. Hope to see you there next year too.

Re: Working Remotely From A Tropical Island In Thailand

#145
I can't stop thinking that this seemingly nice story is in fact the story of a failure. How many employees did learn Thai? How many did decide there was no better place for them and stayed there? How many did find their so in this island? Why didn't the whole team stay there indefinitely?

I say that as a French who decided ten years ago that China was my place, learnt the language, married a Chinese woman and have kids and job in Beijing with no special return plan.

Re: Working Remotely From A Tropical Island In Thailand

#146
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That actually sounds terrible :/ Quality of life and all that jazz.

Well I get off work at about 2:45pm which leaves ~5 hours of daylight after work. I go to bed at about 9pm and feel much better than I ever have energy-wise. You can argue that these were not choices I got to make, and maybe I just have stocklholm syndrome, but I sure do not miss browsing the internet until late into the night and waking up groggy every day. Plus on the weekends I wake up with the sunrise, which actu…

Where do you work, if I may ask? This kind of arrangement would actually make living near and working in SF tolerable. No traffic getting into/out of the city at those times.

Re: Working Remotely From A Tropical Island In Thailand

#147
post #144
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are definitely coworking spaces. I just spent two weeks working out of Kohub on Koh Lanta. Had a great time and even ran into the creator of the framework I specialize in, he was on the same island. Hung out with some guys working on a Bitcoin startup, some other freelancers. Had a great time.

Hey, I think I met you there, was with my buddy Kevin (looks like an Asian version of Hurley from Lost). Kohub and Lanta was a blast. Hope to see you there next year too.

Yep, that was me! Looks like Kevin is still there, saw some photos of him on the Kohub Facebook page last week.

Re: Working Remotely From A Tropical Island In Thailand

#148
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, what they did violates immigration law in Thailand. And the comments of a senior immigration official don't change the law; they just indicate that at least in that region the enforcement is likely to be rather lax. But there's really nothing to get bent about. No locals were out of a job. They lived there as tourists so paid a lot more into the local economy than locals, including a lot more taxes in the form o…

> No locals were out of a job Could you explain how you formed that conclusion? > They lived there as tourists so paid a lot more into the local economy than locals How did you determine that? I've lived as a hippie in India, similar to what Steve Jobs did. I spent 0 money and lived off the temple welfare system. I was exploiting the generosity of people who had a thousandth the resources and welfare that I had. I wa…

> Could you explain how you formed that conclusion?

It appears that Mobile Jazz is a company that caters to western audiences, most of the work they will be doing will be for western clients who wouldn't hire Thai workers. The workers just happen to be out of office when they do their jobs.

Re: Working Remotely From A Tropical Island In Thailand

#149
post #145

I can't stop thinking that this seemingly nice story is in fact the story of a failure. How many employees did learn Thai? How many did decide there was no better place for them and stayed there? How many did find their so in this island? Why didn't the whole team stay there indefinitely? I say that as a French who decided ten years ago that China was my place, learnt the language, married a Chinese woman and have ki…

Your goal was completely different.

They like living in Spain / wherever else they live. They also like travelling to other countries. They're taking a vacation and working from a new place, for a short time. They don't want to live there.

Re: Working Remotely From A Tropical Island In Thailand

#150
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We were there on holidays ;-) But I know what you're talking and while what we're doing is technically a gray zone, what the government is after is mostly freelancers that basically live in Thailand, but are not paying taxes there and are constantly on a visa run to re-enter the country.

No, it isn't a "Gray zone" at all. You're breaking Thai law and contributing to a negative image about foreign workers in a country that already has stringent immigration laws. So as someone doing it the legal way and jumping through the hoops created to catch people like you, I'd just like to say FUCK YOU VERY MUCH.

Don't hate the player, hate the game. Not everyone likes to live risk free.
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