Rocky start for Thailand’s latest alcohol tax reform

[Skeptic7]

Schemes, scams and fiascos. FUBAR and SNAFU. 5 of the most common terms in Thailand. 

[Caldera]

On 3/15/2024 at 7:52 AM, webfact said:

But businesses have faced challenges since the change in rules came into force.

 

All importers are now required to re-register every label with the excise department, and this time around, the customs and excise will determine the wine value.

 

Ah, the Thai bureaucracy at work... one step forward, two steps back...

Edited March 16 by Caldera

[Dogmatix]

On 3/15/2024 at 10:30 AM, Walker88 said:

Ironically, perhaps, these "tax reductions" are going to result in the increase in prices of higher priced wines, because their actual value was never declared accurately.

 

From the article:

 

"All importers are now required to re-register every label with the excise department, and this time around, the customs and excise will determine the wine value."

 

The tax always had the greatest impact on cheap wines, like those sold at 7-11 or Wine Connection. Even moderately priced wines were under declared, as was the # of bottles imported (thus spreading even the modest tax across a greater number of bottles). The under declaration started at pretty low levels, at maybe 1500 baht wholesale.

 

I have found wines at Bangkok restaurants offered at a lower price than I can buy retail at a wine shop in the US (example, Fattoria le Pupille Saffredi)...and the wines at the restaurants are not *Chinese copies, but the real thing. With this tax 'reduction', mixed with Customs doing a simply online check as to what, for example, a 2016 Sassicaia actually costs, prices for better quality wines may well rise. The reductions are more likely to be seen at places like Wine Connection or big retail department stores like Makro or Big-C.

 

*Chinese firms produce lots of fakes. I used to see these in shops in Yangon. Sometimes they don't quite get the labels right. It could be a minor error, such as leaving out a letter, or it could be really bad, such as Shat-oh Raffeet Rofschigh (just joking, but some are truly bad, as is the wine)

 

I always got the impression that the low priced bottles were massively under declared too.  Some low priced bottled must have been declared for a dollar or two each, given that the import duties, excise tax, municipal tax and VAT have to be applied to the landed cost and VAT is applied to the landed cost plus all the other taxes.  I remember looking at an Australian wine import business someone put up for sale.  Part and parcel of the deal was an Australia wine export company which was essential for buying wines in Australia and exporting them somehow at a massive loss in order to keep Thai taxes down. The wine producers are not willing to do this. So importers have to have their own price fixing operations in the exporting countries. 

 

This looks like a huge opportunity for the Customs and Excise Departments to call in millions in bribes as the importers will have to double up on the bribes they have already paid registering all their labels.  Since the =FDA is involved in the registrations, they will also clean up.

[George FmplesdaCosteedback]

For those who haven't been here very long, prices in the shops will remain the same until the new stocks (distributed from 1st March) hit the shelves.