Thai government cuts local alcohol tax to zero to boost tourism and economy

[Will B Good]

Prices will remain the same, as a consequence he has reduce the government's tax take and increased the profits of the monopolies.....moron.

[xylophone]

2 hours ago, KhunBENQ said:

And to no surprise applies to LOCALLY produced alcohol only. As if much wanted high spending tourists are attracted by saving a few Baht on LEO 😖

No surprise as you said.................got to keep the wealthy alcohol barons on side, with possibly a little "donation" or two to help out! Pathetic.

[stoner]

1 hour ago, ikke1959 said:

Not attacking Thailand.... but the wines here are very very expensive and hardly drinkable.. Never went abroad?? When I go to Europe I can have a bottle of good /very good wine for 15 euro (600 THB) in a restaurant, as for this price in Thailand you have chateau Migraine,   because of the 300% tax...I am convinced that if the imported wine was less taxes the revenue would be bigger as more people would like to buy and drink it...Nothing to do with attacking Thailand..but Thais unfortunately think that Thailand is the best country in the world, but many have no clue what is outside

 

i was being sarcastic :) the import tax is a joke i fully agree with you.

 

when i go into villa and i see foods with the label Import i laugh now. 20 years ago when i first came it had a little charm or pizazz to it. meant something. but now its flogging a dead cat.

 

ya ya so what thailand you import food like almost every other country does. 

[Bangkok Barry]

4 hours ago, loong said:

Why do they mess up simple calculations so often in these news items? The conversion to $ should be in billions, not millions.

 

They only have 10 fingers to count on.

[BigStar]

2 hours ago, retarius said:

It will only make a difference if retailers reduce e their prices. If I were a retailer and had this one year opportunity to make additional profits, I would keep prices the same (or reduce by 5% or so) and pocket the extra profit.

 

But other retailers would quickly undercut your prices and put you out of business, leaving you with empty pockets. Fail.

 

In the old days before taxes were raised so high, alcohol in Thailand was reasonable priced or cheap, as it is now in, say, Vietnam.

[Will B Good]

2 hours ago, retarius said:

It will only make a difference if retailers reduce e their prices. If I were a retailer and had this one year opportunity to make additional profits, I would keep prices the same (or reduce by 5% or so) and pocket the extra profit. Does anyone think that bars in Pattaya or Bangkok charging 120 baht for a small Leo that costs about 35 or 40 baht in 7/11 will reduce their prices becuase Leo has gone down to 30 or 35 baht in 7/11. Personally after the hard years of COVID, iI'd want to pocket the extra profit, especially as the opportunity is only for one year. 

That is precisely what will happen....resulting in a lower tax take and increased profits for Chang et al.....

[Ben Zioner]

Thought they wanted quality tourists, those that drink wine. Has anyone tried local wine? I have, once.

[Ralf001]

I went to buy a box of Leo yesterday from my local mom and pop shop.

 

Tried to charge me an extra Bt.100 saying it was a tax increase.

 

I went to the 7/11 and bought a bottle of Regency instead.

 

[shdmn]

4 hours ago, quake said:

Nice to see the rich falangs looking down there noses at the poor people of Thailand

shame on you lot. 

It's most expats favorite passtime.

Edited January 3 by shdmn

[shdmn]

To all the whiners here claiming retailers will just pocket the difference.  You will all be proven wrong as usual.  I guarantee you the big retailers like 7/11 and Big C will not do that because they don't need to.  If the mom and pops don't follow suit nobody will buy from them.

Edited January 3 by shdmn

[ChipButty]

How about reducing tax on cheese? to go with my wine, 

[findlay13]

ROTFLOL That'll help the road toll !

[Moonlover]

5 hours ago, ikke1959 said:

It would be much better to lower the tax on imported wine and beverages, as the local stuff is undrinkable

A sentiment clearly not shared by many thousands of foreigners who live here,

 

5 hours ago, stoner said:

here we go another poster attacking thailand :)

Find me a thread which doesn't contain such a post @stoner.

 

[KannikaP]

5 hours ago, steve187 said:

inbound duty free shops, i don't understand why they have them anyway, maybe to keep king power and its owners happy

Better having the Duty Free booze bought on landing rather than a plane with 300 passengers carrying 300 litres of inflammable liquid weighing well over 300kg.

[JackGats]

To boost road carnage.

[Will B Good]

1 minute ago, KannikaP said:

Better having the Duty Free booze bought on landing rather than a plane with 300 passengers carrying 300 litres of inflammable liquid weighing well over 300kg.

100%.....scares me rigid that all that security exists to catch you with a bottle of water.......then on you go with liters of spirits.

 

Pretty sure a Swiss Air flight over Alaska was downed by someone emptying a bottle of Brandy on the back row and setting light to it .....but as it was unproven.........so the authorities played it all down....too much money to lose.

[spidermike007]

So far Sretta continues to showing himself as a very incapable leader with very modest intelligence. This policy is absolutely dumb, tourists have a very minor amount of interest in drinking crappy Thai beer, and they have zero interest in drinking Thai liquor, which is horrendous.

 

What they might have an interest in is drinking fine imported wine and good spirits from overseas, so let's just admit that local production is junk and lower taxes on the alcoholic beverages that mean something. 

[alien365]

It's about time after all of the tax increases on booze over the last few years! 

[jayboy]

6 hours ago, steve187 said:

inbound duty free shops, i don't understand why they have them anyway, maybe to keep king power and its owners happy

 

The mystery is why any travelers patronize duty free shops at all in Thailand, whether on departure or on arrival.The price of wine, spirits and beer is not materially cheaper than downtown outlets.The service is generally surly and incompetent.The main corporate provider, King Power, is a pile of s**t and widely disliked in Thailand by foreigners and locals alike.

[UbonEagle]

What a joke

more propping up of the corrupt duopoly in this market

break the duopoly encourage craft brewing will help tourism without a doubt 

and lower the ridiculous 🤬ing duty on imported wine

[mikebell]

On 1/3/2024 at 7:25 AM, newbee2022 said:

According to UN the average is 50. But now Thailand is on the way - with no tax on alcohol- to hit this number by far. Maybe 60 or 70 is the next target??🥴

STATS from WHO in BP yesterday!

'Each day from road crashes in THAILAND
60 (13 young) people die 
2,500 (800 youth) are injured
500 are seriously injured (150 are young) 
20 become disabled (7 youth)'

 

Speeding/Drunk Driving/No police force; are the main causes.

[stix40]

Does anyone know when these tax reductions will actually hit the shelves ? 

Edited January 21 by stix40

[Danderman123]

11 minutes ago, stix40 said:

Does anyone know when these tax reductions will actually hit the shelves ? 

Does anyone know if the tax reductions were announced or just "planned to be announced"?

[kwilco]

I believe local governments are allotted all their funds via central government - so they'll probably just knock it off that.

Edited January 21 by kwilco

[Ben Zioner]

12 minutes ago, Danderman123 said:

Does anyone know if the tax reductions were announced or just "planned to be announced"?

They were pondering over thinking to plan to announce a drop in taxes.

[KannikaP]

On 1/3/2024 at 7:21 AM, stoner said:

here we go another poster attacking Thailand :)

Where is most of the Cannabis sold in Thailand grown please?

[Danderman123]

The Thai government loves to announce intentions as if they were deeds.

[stoner]

1 hour ago, KannikaP said:

Where is most of the Cannabis sold in Thailand grown please?

 

locally for the most part now. 

[stix40]

13 hours ago, Ben Zioner said:

They were pondering over thinking to plan to announce a drop in taxes.

Tax cuts were approved on the 2nd of January.

[fondue zoo]

15 hours ago, stix40 said:

Does anyone know when these tax reductions will actually hit the shelves ? 

 

If they do plan on passing the savings onto the consumer it may not be until they move their existing stocks?

Edited January 22 by fondue zoo