Taxation Update: Personal Income Tax
November 13 2012 Categories: Doing Business In Thailand, Thailand Taxes No comments yet
As I was already mentioning in my post of the 10th of April 2012 the revenue department is about to revamp personal income tax. While some of the reforms may permit you to pay less taxes the overall purpose of the reforms will not be to reduce income taxes because as the government is cutting corporate income tax to 23 per cent this year, and then to 20 per cent next year, which will reduce overall revenue and money will have to come from somewhere else.
The easiest measure the government could take to increase collection would be to increase the VAT. We remind you that Thailand VAT official rate is 10% and that the current 7% rate is only a reduced rate which needs to be renewed every year (an incentive that was given at the time of the 1997 crisis and renewed every year since then)
Among the measures to be taken a new rule allowing spouses to file income-tax returns separately, this will allow married couple to pay less tax if each spouse files a separate tax form, as they will then receive more overall tax relief.
The revenue department is also proposing to introduce more personal-income-tax rates. There are currently four rates for different income brackets: 10 per cent, 20 per cent, 30 per cent and 37 per cent. No decision has been taken yet as to whether to increase or reduced the higher bracket of 37%. But the thing is that as much the government would love to increase it will have to keep an eye on what neighbouring countries are doing in the context of the Asean 2015 market
We will keep an eye on the situation and update you whenever needed. Do not hesitate to contact us if you need more information about investing in Thailand
Originally posted 2012-04-19 16:48:27.
