VAT rate to be pegged at 7 percent for another year

 

 

BANGKOK: -- The Revenue Department has proposed the Finance Ministry to keep the value-added tax (VAT) rate at 7 percent for another year until the end of September next year, citing the slow economic recovery and impacts on business operators and the public if VAT is adjusted up.

 

Revenue Department chief Prasong Poonthanet said Monday that the government, in the past year, has meted out various packages to help grassroot people who have been hard hit by drought while exports are contracting due to global economic slowdown.

 

Increasing VAT rate from 7 to 10 percent will add more burden on the consumers and increase the production costs of business operators, he noted.

 

Full story: http://englishnews.thaipbs.or.th/vat-rate-pegged-7-percent-another-year/

 

-- © Copyright Thai PBS 2016-09-13

10 hours ago, webfact said:

citing the slow economic recovery and impacts on business operators and the public if VAT is adjusted up

How can there be a slow economic recovery when the government is predicting an overall increase of almost 18% in GDP growth rate for 2016 compared to 2015?

 

Prayut's government has aimed in 2016 to jolt its underperforming economy into action with 1.41 trillion baht of big-ticket investment projects. That alone should drive an economic recovery and justify an increase in VAT.  Such an increase in VAT would be vital to raising more revenues to support further economic stimuli plans, especially when Prayut has substantially lowered taxes for corporations and SME's, and provided for greater household debt with numerous government soft loan programs.

 

But the truth is that so far nearly all Prayut's plans remain just that - plans, with less than 1% of the amount spent. Tax revenue collection rate has already been the lowest in the world and unlikely to finance further economic stimuli. The FY 2016 budget was increased 5.6% over the FY 2015 budget that included 5% pay raises for the military and government bureaucracies; agricultural industry has received billions of baht in cash subsidies and loan bailouts. Yet consumer confidence has fallen to its lowest in 8 months.

 

Seems facts are catching up to fiction.