Hotel Taxes And Service Charges

[simon43]

Although this question concerns the situation in Phuket, I've posted it here to maybe get a better response.

When booking a hotel room, customer's are often quoted a basic rate, plus 7% VAT, plus 10% service charge, plus 1% provincial tax.

What I want to understand is when and where these charges have to be levied.

For the VAT, my understanding is that the hotel turnover is above a particular threshold each year, then that business has to register for VAT, and levy the 7% VAT charge on their bills. If the hotel turnover is under the threshold, then they do not have to register for VAT and do not levy the 7% on their bills.

For the 10% service charge, is this a additional charge levied by the hotel at their own discretion - and pocketed by the hotel.

Finally, (and specifically for Phuket), there is a 1% room charge levied for each night when a room is occupied. My understanding is that this tax only applies to those 'hotels' which legally fit the definition of a hotel, which is having more than 12 guest bedrooms.

I'm asking all this because our local government office has just asked us to pay the 1% room tax, as well as some more additional taxes that they can't quite define! I believe that our small hotel does not fall under the requirement to pay the 1% tax, but I cannot find links to the relevant Thai legislation on the internet.

Any help etc is much appreciated

Simon

[cmsally]

The revenue info on VAT is here:

VAT

Service charge is discretionary as far as I know.

The 1% Or Bor Jor tax is a pretty stupid one as you are probably paying something similar already to some other govt organisation.

I don't know if their guidelines have anything to do with number of rooms.

If you have a hotel license they probably include you as needing to pay and doesn't matter how many rooms.

As far as I know the Or Bor Jor only have the one tax which is paid monthly before 10th of every month.

I know for the tesabahn tax there is a difference according to number of rooms (cheapest is 10 or less)

I am not aware of any other Or Bor Jor taxes, the tesabahn have the multi ones such as sign tax, land tax, rong reun tax (sp?) - all yearly taxes.