Tat Causing Shut Down Of Many Thailand Websites

[southbot]

Hi forum folks.

I work down on Samui building websites for tourism related business.

Quite a few of my clients have recently shut down their websites, several more are considering doing so.

This is because the T.A.T. has contacted them telling them they must pay a fee of 100,000 Baht to TAT or they are not allowed to have a website for their tourism busines, only an email address.

So, my clients who spend their money promoting both their own business and tourism in Thailand are shutting down their websites.

Has anybody else heard of this utter rubbish?

Any other folks hit with this?

What are your thoughts?

These clients are all Thais, they all have very small business and really cannot afford to pay out 100,000 Baht just to have a website.

Seems to me that this is not such a good way to promote tourism in Thailand?

But hang on, is that not TAT's job?

I am obviously very confused.

comments????

[chinthee]

I'm afraid to comment on this for fear of being labeled anti-Thai. Sorry.

[malcolmswaine]

Sounds dodgy if ever I've heard ....

[southbot]

It ain't dodgy from my end. Real facts.

Just got a call this morning to shut down another SCUBA dive shool's website, permanently.

Just spoke yesterday to the owner of a tour boat business, he tells me to shut down his site end of this month.

For real, TAT is asking for 100,000 baht fee if (1) you are a registered tourism business under their program and (2) you have a live website for your business.

Can any people from other locations in Thailand confirm or deny this one?

This could put too many of my clients out of business, AKA I go out of businesss here and move to Vietnam.

cheers

[RKASA]

I really hope that this is a mistake. I can't see any future with a gov. that would abuse the new found power and control that it has in this way. What law is this Tax based on when did it pass?

[Farma]

Would this be similar to the registration fees travel agents are charged and the bond they have to deposit for their licence.

I.E. Would TAT be looking at these sites as online travel agencies and require travel agent licence fees?

Edited August 23, 2007 by Farma

[southbot]

Would this be similar to the registration fees travel agents are charged and the bond they have to deposit for their licence.

I.E. Would TAT be looking at these sites as online travel agencies and require travel agent licence fees?

Yes, that is what they are saying. They are charging them as if they were travel agents.

BUT they are just small operators offering their own, personal services to clients, many of whom they get via email contact from their websites.

So, they are not selling other peoples or business' services, only their own.

However, TAT has notified many of them and told them that because they are selling on the web they now must pay the same fee that a registered travel agent pays.

Even though they are just trying to sell their own services, not those of others.

And it is not a tax, it is a FEE.

In application this means that any hotel, resort, dive school, boat tour, yacht charter or other tourism related business operating of and for themselves, not selling other stuff only their own will be asked to fork out 100,000 Baht.

But right now the clients I have that have been hit with this are a dive school and a small boat charter/tour company.

Other clients have mentioned it, including a small resort and a 4WD Jeep tour outfit.

I am not sure who is more clueless on this issue, me or the TAT?

What I would like to see/hear in here at TVF would be some other business who have heard of or paid this fee when operating on their own, not as an agent.

cheers all!

[Crushdepth]

This sounds like an official scam to me. I would suggest relocating websites offshore (if they aren't there already) and telling them its none of their business.

If it is true, it sounds sufficiently stupid to warrant contacting the media. 'SMALL TOURISM OPERATORS CRIPPLED BY TAT TAX'.

[RKASA]

A fee is a tax if collected by a gov. agent. This is why these small operators need the freedom to form thier own Non gov. control monitored and regulated groups so they can stand togather and be heard from. In a free press thats not gov. censored by regulation or fear.

[LaoPo]

Hi forum folks.

I work down on Samui building websites for tourism related business.

Quite a few of my clients have recently shut down their websites, several more are considering doing so.

This is because the T.A.T. has contacted them telling them they must pay a fee of 100,000 Baht to TAT or they are not allowed to have a website for their tourism busines, only an email address.

So, my clients who spend their money promoting both their own business and tourism in Thailand are shutting down their websites.

Has anybody else heard of this utter rubbish?

Any other folks hit with this?

What are your thoughts?

These clients are all Thais, they all have very small business and really cannot afford to pay out 100,000 Baht just to have a website.

Seems to me that this is not such a good way to promote tourism in Thailand?

But hang on, is that not TAT's job?

I am obviously very confused.

comments????

I've never heard of such a FEE in Thailand but it might be me...

It sounds outrageous and absurd to me that TAT asks/demands this fee of Baht 100,000, but I would like to hear if that's the same in other high tourists areas as well, like Pattaya and Phuket.

Anybody knows of a LAW that says tourist-operators HAVE to pay that fee to TAT ?

LaoPo

[malcolmswaine]

You should take a spin around and check with the other web design companies on samui to see if they are having similar problems. If this is the case (I'm guessing it must be something scammy if it is) then at least you stand a better chance of sorting it out if you have a little help. IT center might be a good place to start. They have a fairly heavy investment in the local community.

I can't seriously imagine any small Thai companies fronting 100,000 for a 5 page web site.

As crushdepth pointed out, if this is for real, then definitely good grounds for contacting the media.

Edited August 23, 2007 by malcolmswaine

[ChaiRorn]

Sounds like yet more ill-considered tripe, it's becoming the norm in this country it would seem. Why not make a website promoting the virtues of Vietnam or Laos as a tourist destination?, I guess they won't require a 'fee' for that. Insanity.

[nikster]

Wouldn't relocating the servers out of Thailand be an option? After all, I could be a fanatical diver based in the U.S. who just so happened to make a web page with all the info on my favorite SCUBA operator in Thailand. Who would they then try to slap with a fee?

All in all it sounds really silly and most likely is going to get revoked. As somebody else said in some other thread, common sense usually prevails in Thailand once all other options are exhausted

In the meantime of course there's nothing these sites can do but lay low and take down the websites.

Is TAT membership voluntary?

Edited August 24, 2007 by nikster

[southbot]

You should take a spin around and check with the other web design companies on samui to see if they are having similar problems. If this is the case (I'm guessing it must be something scammy if it is) then at least you stand a better chance of sorting it out if you have a little help. IT center might be a good place to start. They have a fairly heavy investment in the local community.

I can't seriously imagine any small Thai companies fronting 100,000 for a 5 page web site.

As crushdepth pointed out, if this is for real, then definitely good grounds for contacting the media.

Thanks for input.

We are in constant contact with many of the smaller IT and Web Developers on Samui, mostly we all know each other and all have the same client base.

There has been some mention of this issue with other developers/designers, yes.

I shall however check directly with the management of the IT Complex in due course because, as you point out, they have a heavy investment in web and IT matters.

Contacting the media is being considered by us, after we gather the facts and the numbers, given a little more time we will do so.

Regarding servers, all developers and designers on Samui who offer web hosting, as far as I know, all have their servers located outside Thailand anyway.

The Thai servers are slow, unreliable and very expensive.

Cheers

Edited August 24, 2007 by southbot

[Thaising]

Is there any TAT official letter notifying website owner to pay the fee or just a call from them, hope these isn’t a scam, if its official letter from TAT just forwards copy to the press media for further attention and see what TAT have to explains in requesting such fee.

Edited August 24, 2007 by Thaising

[RKASA]

One would think that for 100K TaT would be designing and hosting the site for them.

That would be with C card service. right?

[baanthale]

Hi all,

Our business is up to renewal on TAT license this year, and it looks like they now want 100,000THB as a "deposition" if your business have a website.

I explained that yes, we have a website, but no online booking, and we pay for the domain name every year already. We asked why pay and for what, answere we got back was, "everyone has to pay". Anyone else been out for this?

regards,

[cmsally]

Absolute rubbish.

According to what kind of license you have , you will already have money in the bank as a guarantee.

That's when you first did the license. On renewal you simply take in the forms and pay your renewal fee (is it around 400Bt, I can't remember) and that's it.

Don't even mention website, it's none of their business.

[Cyberstar]

Yes, it seems that you're not alone:

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=138980

[Phil Conners]

Is this legally documented somewhere or is it just YATS (Yet Another Thai Scam)

[Prakanong]

Is this legally documented somewhere or is it just YATS (Yet Another Thai Scam)

There is another thread started about this today in another location so it would seem it to be a nationwide exercise at raising revenue - the military budget is up a lot and the pie is only a certain size.

Maybe TAT's budget was cut and they need to raise more money

Oneself, foot and shoot springs to mind once again.

[cmsally]

You need to get hold of a letter with the details of this demand. These things are not done over the phone.

Only then will it be clear what is going on.

If this is restricted only to Koh Samui it seems completely dodgy.

Are they trying to crack down on people selling services who don't already have a TAT license but do have a website selling?

However it would seem not as on another thread there was someone who was being hit for 100k on top of renewal.

However I have heard from Thai friends that there is a drive for revenue increase as the you know who have run out of cash.

[Carmine6]

Hi forum folks.

I work down on Samui building websites for tourism related business.

Quite a few of my clients have recently shut down their websites, several more are considering doing so.

This is because the T.A.T. has contacted them telling them they must pay a fee of 100,000 Baht to TAT or they are not allowed to have a website for their tourism busines, only an email address.

So, my clients who spend their money promoting both their own business and tourism in Thailand are shutting down their websites.

Has anybody else heard of this utter rubbish?

Any other folks hit with this?

What are your thoughts?

These clients are all Thais, they all have very small business and really cannot afford to pay out 100,000 Baht just to have a website.

Seems to me that this is not such a good way to promote tourism in Thailand?

But hang on, is that not TAT's job?

I am obviously very confused.

comments????

If this is the case, couldn't a business be made of setting up a central website under one domain name with pages for the businesses? Then it'd be just one 100,000 baht fee, with some smaller fee charged to the businesses for the page. Or make several websites. Group all diving under one domain name, one for tours, etc.

[Phil Conners]

Is this legally documented somewhere or is it just YATS (Yet Another Thai Scam)

There is another thread started about this today in another location so it would seem it to be a nationwide exercise at raising revenue - the military budget is up a lot and the pie is only a certain size.

Maybe TAT's budget was cut and they need to raise more money

Oneself, foot and shoot springs to mind once again.

Agreed. "Taxing" websites advertising Thailand is just plain stupid and hurting an already struggling economy.

What else is new?

PS. if I understand right it is only Phuket TAT doing this, I've yet to hear anyone from Pattaya being shaken down ...

Edited August 29, 2007 by Phil Conners

[dogblower]

Anyone care to point me in the direction of the other "thread in another location"? I'm keen to find out more about this and to see more people's views.

[tjo o tjim]

I can picture plenty of reasons for requiring these companies to put up a bond on the order of 1M Baht (which should cost on the order of 100k Baht). Without it, there is no recourse if improper bookings are made, unless you get lucky with your credit card company.

I have heard complaints of some booking sites representing themselves as a resort, but charging twice the rack rates for bookings. I know it was common two years or so back, and I encountered a number of people that felt robbed. If those complaints made it back to TAT, it would explain the additional requirements.

It's a bit backwards, but TiT.

[madmitch]

I can picture plenty of reasons for requiring these companies to put up a bond on the order of 1M Baht (which should cost on the order of 100k Baht). Without it, there is no recourse if improper bookings are made, unless you get lucky with your credit card company.

I have heard complaints of some booking sites representing themselves as a resort, but charging twice the rack rates for bookings. I know it was common two years or so back, and I encountered a number of people that felt robbed. If those complaints made it back to TAT, it would explain the additional requirements.

It's a bit backwards, but TiT.

We don't know any reason or the extent of this as no one seems to have anything official.

I have not heard about it in Phuket.

I have a website and a very large proportion of my business is generated this way but I do not sell tours, my business is licensed with the local authorities and not the TAT and I therefore don't anticipate being hit with any such tax but I'll be watching this thread with interest and will post if I hear of any activity in Phuket.

[A_Traveller]

Looks like TAT are googling and if they think a site is offering 'tour services' then saying the provider must be licensed with them.

Problem is we have no examples of a site being issued with cease & desist notice. Further is this being done over the phone or by fax/ email/ registered mail?

Any further clarification would be welcome. On the website point what about adding {in Thai} a disclaimer page. i.e. we do not offer accommodation or tours per se {even if you do, kinda }

Regards

[RKASA]

yea and if you feel robbed then TaT is going to use a bond money to refund you, NoooT. follow the money where is it going. Tell me how many refunded by TaT?

[onethailand]

It appears to me that TAT is basically saying that in order to advertise your tourism-related business, you must be licensed by the TAT - and the fee for inbound OR outbound tourism is 100K, while the fee for both is 200K.

I agree this is a bit harsh.