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ResourcesCorporate and Tax AdvisoryThailand Tax LawVAT Rate Remains Unchanged in Thailand for Another Year

VAT Rate Remains Unchanged in Thailand for Another Year

Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests we're going to be discussing VATs, specifically recent announcements that the VAT rates will continue as it has in the past, at least for the forthcoming year, so to round out, 2018 and through 2019 or at least to about this time in 2019.  

A recent article for the Bangkok Post. Titled: “Cabinet Keeps VAT at 7% for Another Year”. Quoting directly, "Cabinet has decided to keep Value Added Tax at the current rate of 7% for another year, from October 1st to September 30th, 2019." Quoting further, ”VAT was introduced in 1992 and it was set at 10% but was slashed to 7% in late 1997 at the private sector's request; It has been kept at that rate ever since with the decision made each year." 

There is a full article on this. I urge those who are watching this to go check out that article on the Bangkok Post website. But the thing to take away from this video, I got a little bit of flack when I began to discussing the possibility of an increased  VAT over the past couple of years and it was based on, I think, the erroneous presumption that VAT is 7%. No, as noted in this article, when it began it started at 10%. It was later cut down to 7% and it has remained, for lack of a better word, it has temporarily remained 7% just on a year-by-year renewal basis but there is nothing to, there is no reason to presume or infer that that will just continue on forever. It is continuously reviewed.

It doesn't appear to me as though officials are particularly keen to increase the rate, at least at the time of this video, but there is nothing that I believe warrants one to presume that it will remain 7% forever; I think there is a strong possibility that in coming years we will see it raised. But that being said, good news for business owners here in the Kingdom, and for the public-at-large I guess, the VAT will remain 7% through October, 2019.