Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing increasing the VAT, or the Government's denial that they are going to be increasing the VAT. I thought of making this video after reading recent article in the print edition of Bangkok Post, I expect you can probably also find it online at bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Govt Denies Plotting VAT hike. Quoting directly: "The Government has firmly denied reports suggesting a planned hike in value-added tax (VAT) from 7 to 10%, describing the claims as misinformation and reiterating its commitment to easing the cost of living for the general public." So I urge those who are watching this video, you can go check that out in again, bangkokpost.com, or if you can find the print edition. Long story short, and I urge those to go read that article in more detail regarding the assertions that this won't be happening.

Very quickly before I continue, I just wanted to quickly say not only do we handle, or am I sort of a man of many parts if you will, am I the Managing Director here at the firm but my better half and I also set up a restaurant here in downtown Bangkok. Pancake Palace, as the name implies breakfast anytime, including pancakes. We also have English style breakfast as well as American Diner style food: hamburgers, cheeseburgers, chilli bowls, chilli dogs, hot dogs as well as buffalo wings - in my opinion, best in the city - and we have also got grilled cheese as well as glass bottled Coke. If you're interested, come on down, Pancake Palace here in downtown Bangkok; links are in the description below. 

That said, back to this. We saw this, actually I remember this happening going back under Prayut - I don't even know if I was doing videos that far back - but it's probably about a year before we started doing the videos for this channel because I think I blogged about it, and it was after the Military Government had taken over and they just kind of floated the idea that they might go to an 8% VAT. I mean the backlash was so huge there was a hashtag on it on Thai Twitter within like a couple, it wasn't even an hour, it was like 15 minutes after it had sort of been floated. For those who are unaware, when Thailand created the VAT, it actually started off at 10% and then they “temporarily” reduced it to 7, so they've always had this sort of pocket authority in theory to bump it up to 10%. Again going back to "reiterating its commitment to easing the cost of living for the general public" I don't think it's particularly politic at the moment to be increasing the VAT under the current tensions we are seeing in the Middle East, as well as the economic ramifications that are stemming from that. So I find it rather unlikely that we would see an increase in the value-added tax here in Thailand. 

For those who are unaware, value-added tax is often associated with companies that are employing foreigners if for no other reason than oftentimes it's a requirement to be registered for VAT as a company in order to be able to put a foreign national on the books with regard to a Business Visa or a Work Permit. So the way to think of that, I'm bringing that up basically because VAT has a disproportionate impact on foreigners doing business in Thailand compared to smaller Thai businesses. I've had people over the years say, "well why can the Thais do it like that? Why don't they need an incorporated entity?" Well it's their country. They can work wherever they want and do it however they want. 

That said, long story short, it looks like we're not going to be seeing an increase in the value-added tax. That said, we will certainly be keeping folks updated on this channel as the situation evolves.