Thailand Customs to Apply VAT on All Postal Imports

[BestB]

Is Thai government that broke ?

It is  bad enough as is with tax on items over 1500, they want to make it even worse?

 

they worry about cheap products flooding the market ? But will tax individual parcels ? Great thinking 

[BestB]

35 minutes ago, ericthai said:

It hasn't started yet. You were using DHL and UPS and they have been charging import/storage/clearing fee for decades.  

With them is not only about fees but also value that they put on.

 

Judy had a case where I bought something for 2000 baht but there was a discount 500 baht , all showing on the invoice and yet they insisted charging on 2000

what they gonna do with registered post ? Open up each parcel and put a value on it ?

manpower will need to triple to do all that and delays would be weeks if not longer in addition to many items possibly going missing or misplaced 

[Kalasin Jo]

7 hours ago, PB172111 said:

lol….you will find that many other countries are doing the same thing. Thailand is just a bit late to the party

Indeed. Brexit ended the extremely easy sending of goods between the UK and an EU country. Now It can be extremely costly and in some cases export/import licences are needed adding even further to the cost. Has put many UK small businesses that had thriving EU customer bases in great difficulty or even forced some to close down. In France the taxes on products sent from a non EU country such as the UK are collected on delivery and the item is withheld until payment.

Before the UK joined the EU I remember well buying an expensive Murano glass item from the Venetian  factory. They organised packing and despatch very efficiently. But on the item arriving in the UK HM Customs impounded it and sent me a notice requiring payment of customs dues before they would release it for delivery, significantly adding to the total cost.

[john donson]

a few years ago, after ordering for hundreds of thousands of baht over the years, my package valued at 3000 baht at that time, iherb limit, was held for ransom...

 

lost half a day travelling to and from to go pay 1000 baht imposed tax near chaeng wattana

 

would have preferred to pay my local postman or post office (still 20 km away, living on the 'border' but no car...)

[Dogmatix]

31 minutes ago, BestB said:

With them is not only about fees but also value that they put on.

 

Judy had a case where I bought something for 2000 baht but there was a discount 500 baht , all showing on the invoice and yet they insisted charging on 2000

what they gonna do with registered post ? Open up each parcel and put a value on it ?

manpower will need to triple to do all that and delays would be weeks if not longer in addition to many items possibly going missing or misplaced 

 

I had a problem like that on an expensive item ordered for 2,000 euros in a Black Friday sale with free shipping offered too.  The vendor put the gross value before discount and the shipping cost before deducting it on the invoice, then deducted the discount. Guess what?  I was forced to pay duty and VAT on the gross price plus shipping.

[Jiggo]

9 hours ago, redwood1 said:

 

Well that would mean a higher tax would need to be paid some where along the line...

The seller will add the tax onto the final bill 

Just like Amazon and eBay 

[JimTripper]

10 hours ago, jimgilly said:

So does that mean you will have to go to the post office for every package coming in from another country to pay this BS tax?   On top of this,  they are working overtime trying to find how they can extract more money from expats living here.  There are better places in this world to be and I for one will be moving on.  Get out while you can because things are just going to get worse in the future.

I'm looking at Mexico. Can get temporary/permanent residency easily if you not completely broke and even get a second passport and qualify for the national healthcare system. Am trying to get the visa directly from the Bangkok embassy.

[Ralf001]

17 hours ago, redwood1 said:

 

 

Then you must go down to the post office and stand in line to pay your 7 baht tax to get your package...lol

 

 

Sounds like fun !

 

The come pay the taxes slip I get... directs me to my local post office.

I go there only to be told it is an international import and I must collect from the main Chonburi post office, a 1.5hr round trip drive.

[daveAustin]

18 hours ago, John Drake said:

Prayuth was better.

Hate to say it too, but ever since the change everything has gone to sh*t! 

[Mann33bkk]

18 hours ago, redwood1 said:

So on a package thats worth 100 baht....They will have to process the package how many times to make sure they get their 7 baht tax?

 

Then you must go down to the post office and stand in line to pay your 7 baht tax to get your package...lol

 

This has been introduced in other countries in the past. The responsibility then falls on the seller and their outlets. So if an item is ordered from China to Thailand, for example lazada will be responsible for VAT being paid

[Skipalongcassidy]

I have been ordering items on Lazada for years... nothing new here... Says right on the total line that VAT is included.

Order Summary

Subtotal (2 items)

฿658.00

Shipping Fee

฿53.00

 

APPLY

Total

฿711.00VAT included, where applicable

[new2here]

16 hours ago, RandolphGB said:

This is not difficult to implement.

 

Shopee, Lazada, AliExpress etc etc just need to collect the 7% at checkout and pass it onto the Thai government. The amount will be hundreds of millions of dollars a year.

 

Somebody has to pay for the Shinawatra family's private jets and property empire. And it sure as hell isn't going to be them. 

I agree .. this is just like how airport and other related taxes are applied to airline tickets.. the implementation and onus of collection would fall to the merchant .. and they would then have to remit said collected taxes to the authority. 

 

As far as shippers who may try to maliciously under-declare or materially misrepresent the items value or description goes.. that you can help to control by doing spot checks on incoming packages with fines of 5x the understated value or XXX fine for misrepresenting the commodity … and they could even go one step further.. they could try to hold the importer -call me Lazada, Shopee Express etc - liable for the misrepresentation.. much like some countries do to airlines that transports someone into a country, but then turns out to be inadmissible.. 

 

So.. this idea of assessing all packages with VAT or other related taxes goes.. as far as a way to implement it goes.. that to me wouldn’t be all that hard to do and the general plan to do so has been done in other situations before.. 

[Spilornis]

9 hours ago, Jiggo said:

The seller will add the tax onto the final bill 

Just like Amazon and eBay 

Exactly... happens now in most countries.

Alipay into Australia is another example

I suspect it's the sale platform who remits the tax rather than the end seller. The seller would get paid net of tax and platform commission

[Sydebolle]

Ordered some plastic screws from China, THB 94 incl. postage.

The following scenario shows the more juicier details of yet another splendid idea on how to finance the three engine-less submarines 😉 

7% VAT is THB 6.58 (or THB 7). In order to "earn" THB 7 tax money, the costs in opening, checking, resealing, delivering, collecting and channel the VAT via Thai post (or courier service) to the Ministry of Finance ........

Yet another royal fart by this most entertaining group of governmental goons and showtime by the clowns of Bangkok's bureaucratic circus! 

And then the Thais are surprised, if the non-Thai crowd has a kind of non-understanding smile on its face 8-) 

[shdmn]

What could possibly go wrong.

[Felton Jarvis]

21 hours ago, OldmanJ said:

Is it only me or does it appear that the Thai government are trying to slowly drive us expats out of the country and look for an alternative country to spend our money and final days.

It's not just you.  Most expats feel this way whether they will admit it or not. No good deed goes unpunished if you are an expat.

[mania]

21 hours ago, Liverpool Lou said:

Your post suggests that the government is trying to disguise Value Added Tax by using another name, what name do you claim that they are now using?    Value Added Tax is an undisguised tax.

Did you read the quote? "but continue to exempt import duties. " All I was saying is call it this or call it that a tax is a tax...But never mind it was never meant to be so serious 😉 

[chilli42]

16 hours ago, ericthai said:

It hasn't started yet. You were using DHL and UPS and they have been charging import/storage/clearing fee for decades.  

Nonsense, of course it has started.  UPS and DHL never charged for envelopes and/or items below 1,500.  It started in January and it was confirmed to me in person by the friendly customs staff of the change in January as they collected their fees.

[chilli42]

20 hours ago, Highlandman said:

In my experience they don't open anything unless they believe something suspicious is going on.

 

A lightweight, low value item generally passes through without further inspection. 

 

The invoice is attached in a pouch outside the box, easy to see how much the item is valued at without opening the box.

Yes, that was certainly my experience as well.  Perhaps they have become more zealous in verifying that what’s inside is the same as what is claimed in the shipping document.  Of course this only happened on 3 packages so far … maybe an outlier event.

[Dario]

On 4/29/2024 at 11:56 AM, NotEinstein said:

This is obviously aimed at the huge amount of Lazada and Shopee parcels direct from China via the delivery services, not via the post office. I guess it will be up to the delivery guy to collect the tax payment upon delivery, or else how is it supposed to work?

 

No. Lazada and Shopee items don't come necessarily via the post office. They are forwarded to a Logistics partner like J&T or Flash Express.

[Trip Hop]

On 4/29/2024 at 2:21 PM, richard_smith237 said:

 

Indeed - this would be the logical way to set things up.... 

 

What about regular post - i.e. grandparents sending presents over etc....     Are customs going to be jumping all over those packages too ??? and does this mean packages are going to take much longer to get through rather than the usual 1 week to 10 days ?

 

 

 

 

 

Only time will tell on this one because nobody knows their full intentions but they appear to be getting desperate for cash lately with all the recent changes to tax legislation? I can understand them wanting to clamp down on cheap imports but I think taxing everything imported including what may just be a simple present from a relative abroad is going a bit far?

[NotEinstein]

10 minutes ago, Dario said:

 

No. Lazada and Shopee items don't come necessarily via the post office. They are forwarded to a Logistics partner like J&T or Flash Express.

Err - that is what I said.....

[ThailandGuy]

On 4/29/2024 at 6:36 AM, BritManToo said:

Can't imagine China allowing this to happen!

The new highspeed train between Bangkok and Nong Khai will run at halfspeed..... 😉 or they will exclude products from China and probably Russia 🙂 

[ExpatOilWorker]

On 4/29/2024 at 12:04 PM, ezzra said:

There are bunch of people sitting out there thinking day and nights how to gouge more money from people,

never less, always more...

In a picture, is this how you feel?

 

[Highlandman]

7 hours ago, chilli42 said:

Nonsense, of course it has started.  UPS and DHL never charged for envelopes and/or items below 1,500.  It started in January and it was confirmed to me in person by the friendly customs staff of the change in January as they collected their fees.

Oh but they did! Every time I've imported something through DHL I've been charged regardless of the amount on the invoice! Only exception is if it's documents or the taxes were prepaid.

 

Most of the items I imported using DHL were back in 2020 and 2021. Always charged something. No duty exemption. Period.

 

Only the post office honored this so far.

[John Drake]

15 hours ago, daveAustin said:

Hate to say it too, but ever since the change everything has gone to sh*t! 

 

My view right before the election was that PTP/Thaksin were the supreme campaigners and political maneuverers. And it's true. Nobody in Thailand can compare to them. They run circles around everyone else. I also feared, however, that PTP grabbing power would be bad for expatriates in particular. Prayuth basically left immigration alone--just the 400K year round maintenance, I think. He was a status quo politician. And for me, that's what I want. No changes. Now we're getting changes galore, and I can't see anywhere it's for the better, not only for expatriates but for average Thai people. And ultimately, it's their interests that count. And I think Prayuth was better. I now look at 2021 to 2022 as a sort of Golden Age in Thailand.

[SpaceKadet]

The truth is that vast majority of Chinese drop shipping from Lazada, Shopee. AliExpress and others don't arrive through the post office. Most are distributed by delivery services. like Kerry, Flash Express and such. So how are they gonna collect their 7% tax? 

[VocalNeal]

22 hours ago, Trip Hop said:

Only time will tell on this one because nobody knows their full intentions but they appear to be getting desperate for cash lately with all the recent changes to tax legislation? I can understand them wanting to clamp down on cheap imports but I think taxing everything imported including what may just be a simple present from a relative abroad is going a bit far?

 

Thailand is not alone with this problem. According to the Universal Postal Union the senders country gets the postal fee and the receiving country delivers the item for a lower fee. This worked fine in an era of reciprocal postal volumes but now is skewed in favour of China. 

 

VAT is not a duty so conforms with WTO. I say go ahead Thailand.  

[Arkady]

The permanent secretary for finance, Mr Lavaron, was quoted as saying the Customs Department would make an announcement about this to avoid having to legislate it in parliament.  So far there has been no announcement from the Customs Department.  All their various types of announcements are listed here https://th.customs.go.th/list_strc_download_with_docno_date.php?ini_content=announce_160426_01&ini_menu=menu_Interest_and_law_160421_07&left_menu=menu_Interest_and_law_160421_07_160421_01&order_by=date&sort_type=0&lang=th&root_left_menu=menu_Interest_and_law_160421_07&left_menu=menu_Interest_and_law_160421_07_160421_01.

 

Also there is nothing in the Royal Gazette searching under "value added tax"\, nor any Finance Ministry ministerial regulations on the matter.  Has anyone seen an official announcement of the rescinding of the tax exemption?  It look like it hasn't been announced yet and normally there is some notice period.  I would think at least a month for a tax change of this type.

[dogfish180]

On 4/29/2024 at 2:15 PM, Expat68 said:

They will not release from PO, have to go and pay first

Could you imagine the lines in the PO, if this is applied to Lazada items from China!