New tax on tutors, medical staff, vendors proposed: Thailand

[webfact]

New Tax On Tutors, Medical Staff, Vendors Proposed

By Khaosod Online



BANGKOK: -- The Revenue Department is considering a new tax to be imposed on tutors, medical personnel, and flea market traders.

Mr. Suthichai Sangkhamanee, Director-General of the Revenue Department, which operates under the Ministry of Finance, said the tutors should pay corporate income tax, personal income tax, as well as value added tax, depending on the size of their businesses.

The decision should be finalised by the end of 2014, and the Department will adopt the measurement from the Ministry of Education as a guideline to assess the profitability of tutor schools, said Mr. Suthichai.

In 2010, Mr. Suthichai said, the Ministry of Finance has in fact considered a plan to gain more tax revenue from tutor establishments as proposed by the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC). It was estimated that taxing these tutor schools could generate up to 4-5 billion baht annually, but the plan was never implemented, according to Mr. Suthichai.

"Our department can collect revenues from tutor schools, but we have been reluctant to do so, since we view them as educational institutions," said Mr. Suthichai, "However, many schools have been exploiting the exemption. Many of them simply play video records of big name tutors to the students from all over the country".

He added, "We need to reconsider the appropriateness and the quality of these classrooms,"

Mr. Suthichai told our correspondent that he had instructed the officials to curb on the tax evasions by self-employed workers, namely; medical personnel and doctors. He said the new income tax system, to be implemented before the end of this year, would contain gaps for these individuals to evade tax payment.

“We need to make sure medical personnel abide by law. The Department needs to evaluate their real income, using their contract with the hospitals and real working hours”, said Mr. Suthichai.

Insurance companies will also be assessed by the Department, as many insurance brokers are required to pay value added tax of their earnings if they made more than 1.8 million baht each year.

Therefore, many brokers took advantage of the unrestricted system to represent their family members to share the earnings and to avoid paying VAT, Mr. Suthichai alleged.

“We have allowed tax payers to use insurance for tax refund, so insurance company should squarely pay their taxes in real numbers”, he added.

Furthermore, the Revenue Department is currently studying the possibility to charge market stall owners effectively for their personal income tax, after they learned many traders make large sum of money from the flea markets and weekend markets, which is not registered to the department.

“It is difficult to charge stall owners taxes, as they come from other provinces other than Bangkok, which means the payment must be made in their hometown," Mr. Suthichai said, "We are currently studying the possibility to launch the new panel for tax payment for flea-market traders that are specifically divided from the current forms.”

He added that no legislation amendment would be necessary to impose these new taxes.

Source: http://www.khaosod.co.th/en/view_newsonline.php?newsid=TVRNNE56ZzRNek0zT0E9PQ==


-- Khaosod English 2013-12-25

[Bender]

forget tutors or vendors, i have a better idea! Why not a new tax on foreigner?

[Nacho]

The tax system definitely needs to be reformed in order to create fairness. If all were to pay tax it would help stop political parties from vote buying with tax payers money. Also nothing was mentioned about land tax. This definitely needs to get implemented one day. It gets talked about but nothing ever happens.

[Tatsujin]

forget tutors or vendors, i have a better idea! Why not a new tax on foreigner?

Thanks, but I'm already paying way more than most do here.

[jonclark]

forget tutors or vendors, i have a better idea! Why not a new tax on foreigner?

A tax on trolls would be better - merry christmmas

[noikrit]

Gotta pay for the Rice Scam some way ...............

[JRSoul]

Gotta pay for the Rice Scam some way ...............

......and i'm sure those mentioned will be happy to contribute to the theft, mismanagement and vote-buying endless subsidies.

[Yunla]

How about a tax on families of fugitive criminal billionaires who are hiding from justice abroad.

[Kilgore Trout]

forget tutors or vendors, i have a better idea! Why not a new tax on foreigner?

Thanks, but I'm already paying way more than most do here.

+1

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

[h90]

forget tutors or vendors, i have a better idea! Why not a new tax on foreigner?

We could also increase the tax on imported wine and beer......

[Thai at Heart]

forget tutors or vendors, i have a better idea! Why not a new tax on foreigner?

We could also increase the tax on imported wine and beer......

More. My god. Aren't they already in the guiness book of records for this?

[MaxLee]

Tax the poor , oh yes that's a solution, the nasty nasty poor AND Farang are the pesky fault of the rich high so's problems...

[ginjag]

A tax on all persons involved in road accidents (those at fault) A tax on all the scams. A 100% tax on all corruption A 95% tax on money collected by the BIB on all road blocks.

[jackr]

I always cringe when governments muse tax, especially here which seems to be playing catch up!!!

[Soutpeel]

forget tutors or vendors, i have a better idea! Why not a new tax on foreigner?

They will be doing that if the THB 500 surcharge thing comes in

[culicine]

Tutoring schools make billions per year. These are big businesses and exploit students and weaknesses in the current education sector. Why should they not pay tax? As a teacher I'm involved in education, but I also pay a lot of tax per year. I'm pretty sure my private school pays tax too.

[belg]

seems like in western countries

impose more taxes, but do nothing about the billions of money waisted spending in subsidies that help who ? the rich ? the middle men ?

[bigbamboo]

A Tea Money tax would be a massive earner for the government but I guess it would be fairer to tax those elite Bangkok stallholders instead.

Talking of the 'elite' does anyone how is Mr T's Elite Card is doing these days?

[soi41]

A government elected by the poor, taxing the poor, whilst the rich is getting richer!!

And the alternative, Suthep, even worse.

Poor Thai people, they have to choose between plague and cholera!!

[ginjag]

A government elected by the poor, taxing the poor, whilst the rich is getting richer!!

And the alternative, Suthep, even worse.

Poor Thai people, they have to choose between plague and cholera!!

But get typhoid instead.

[tingtongteesood]

A government elected by the poor, taxing the poor, whilst the rich is getting richer!!

And the alternative, Suthep, even worse.

Poor Thai people, they have to choose between plague and cholera!!

That is rather a stupid statement given that 'the poor' - the farmers for the most part pay no tax and the government is using 'rich' tax payers money to pay for the rice scam among its other populist vote buying policies. Now taxes are going to go up and we have rampant inflation already caused by the dipshits that were voted in by the farmers insisting on the minimum 300 baht per day wages which in itself is not a bad idea but it was in no way thought out properly and mishandled causing prices of everything to rise. They are ruining the country. Populist policies, corruption, mismanagement and out and out corruption and theft of public funds. Now they are having to borrow money and plunge Thailand into debt that the grandchildren will be struggling to pay back if PT get their way. What a great way to run a country - NOT !!!

[Briggsy]

The concept of self-employed people actually paying income tax is relatively new here. I can understand their reluctance to pay on a number of fronts. It is not all that dissimilar to Greece. In fact the countries where the majority of self-employed people do pay income tax is very probably a minority of the UN's members.

However, all good things come to end. I can see this being very difficult to enforce effectively though.

[thaikahuna]

Well Played, Thailand! IF and I said IF you were to go and place just a single annual tax on all street vendors to hawk their goods they would more than make up for any deficeit graft, I mean spending. That would also include enforcing the tax they...........oh, <deleted>, they will never learn that graft is too ingrained in the society you will never be rid of it.

[h90]

forget tutors or vendors, i have a better idea! Why not a new tax on foreigner?

We could also increase the tax on imported wine and beer......

More. My god. Aren't they already in the guiness book of records for this?

I am surprised that there aren't alternative sources yet.....Or maybe there are only I don't know about it...

[Thai at Heart]

The concept of self-employed people actually paying income tax is relatively new here. I can understand their reluctance to pay on a number of fronts. It is not all that dissimilar to Greece. In fact the countries where the majority of self-employed people do pay income tax is very probably a minority of the UN's members.

However, all good things come to end. I can see this being very difficult to enforce effectively though.

Absolutely correct. Everyone is moaning about taxes being wasted, and yet there are only 2mn tax payers. Add in farangs who are often paying taxes and its even less. The tutoring business is enormous.

[angsta]

So the poorest people? Nice work morons.

[KIWIBATCH]

A tax on all persons involved in road accidents (those at fault) A tax on all the scams. A 100% tax on all corruption A 95% tax on money collected by the BIB on all road blocks.

....and a tax on any Government official that introduces another bloody HUB.........(effective midnight tonight 25 December 2013)

[Briggsy]

Once again we have a misleading headline. I do not see a new tax here, what I see is enforcement of laws on the books that have not been enforced or previously interpreted very leniently in favour of [non-]taxpayers with regards to certain types of income (that would be known in the UK as "schedule D", sole traders, partnerships).

What this is a blitz, a focus, even a crackdown on widespread tax evasion.

You get this in the UK. The Inland Revenue will decide to target certain areas of the economy, e.g. plumbers, where there is scope for fraud or non-payment of tax.

[Basil B]

There could be a lot tax to collect if they were to tax bar ladies extra income.

[bangkokheat]

i guess extracting tax money from the tax evading rich is out of the question