Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing vaccinations for COVID and tax issues associated therewith. A recent article from Thai PBS World, that is thaipbsworld.com, the article is titled: Thai Revenue Department Denies Imported COVID-19 Vaccines are Double Taxed. Quoting directly: "Thailand's Revenue Department has refuted an allegation that it will levy double taxation on COVID-19 vaccines imported by the private sector resulting in higher charges for inoculations. Sommai Siriudomset, Spokesperson for the Revenue Department tax collection strategic advisor confirmed today (Thursday) that the double taxation allegation is misleading and inaccurate. She said that only 7% tax or VAT is charged not 14% as widely misunderstood."

So apparently there was something going around that there was even more taxes associated with the COVID vaccines that were being imported. What I suspect that this was the case is you have an importer, they bring it in and they are subject to 7% VAT on its way in and then maybe they sell it on to for lack of a better term, kind of like a retailer although this isn't like clothing or something, we are talking about vaccinations, but they sell it on to somebody who they have to do VAT to that person. For those who understand how the VAT system works here in Thailand, for those who don't that is value-added tax, basically the person who is selling it on, they get a credit so you don't actually compound the 7% from person to person. It actually only goes up incrementally because the person who sells it onwards gets to credit what they paid in VAT on their VAT tax return basically, what they file every month. Then the next person gets to credit what they had to pay in VAT. So it just passes forward but it does not compound. I think that is what people are failing to understand with respect to this.

We deal with a lot of tax matters here in the office. We have accountants here and lawyers who are rather specialized at this point dealing with VAT specifically and understanding VAT, especially for those who don't come from a country that has VAT, for example like the US, when you first see it you think everything is just taxed to the hilt and it is all compounded. Once you understand how the credit system works, as a practical matter it is not compounded. It does increase to some degree a little bit incrementally as the underlying price goes up and then you have to deal with 7% of that, but the long story short, no it is not like it is going to be doubled up because it passed through an importer on to whoever finally is administering the vaccine. So there seems to be that misconception, we thought we would go ahead and do a video on that and it looks like the tax situation on this is really not much different than anything else which is imported here into the Kingdom of Thailand.