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Online Tax Invoicing in Thailand

Transcript of the above video:

In this video, we're going to be briefly discussing a proposal that's come to the forefront here recently. This was discussed in the past but it has now come back to the forefront. It's the notion of e-tax invoicing and for a quick overview, what we're talking about here, in another video we discussed tax invoicing rather at length. Tax invoicing especially the formalities associated with proper tax invoicing in Thailand.   

Its accord especially from a VAT standpoint as proper tax invoicing can lead to mitigation of one's monthly VAT payments or during the VAT payments if you look at it from the aggregate. It's been recently discussed at length in another video that was just put on this channel along with this video that the Thai government has recently been suggesting that the VAT in Thailand be raised. Now that proposal has now been brought to the forefront within the Thai media. It's now come up twice within the past three months at the time of this filming and it's not been undertaken in either case. In fact, it's been summarily dismissed as an idea for revenue generation.

But that being said, one thing that did come up in recent discussions, most notably recent comments from the Ministry of Finance I should say is e-tax invoicing may be a way to better facilitate revenue collection by the Thai government, by the government here in Thailand. And this e-tax invoicing structure has been discussed. It was discussed on the revenue department website back about three or four years ago and when it came up essentially, the idea is this -- right now, the tax system in Thailand is almost entirely paperless as of 2016. They have instituted an e-filing system for things like audited financial statements. But as far as monthly invoices which is submitted as supporting documentation in furtherance of providing proof of VAT mitigation, this is all done on paper and it's still done on paper. In my opinion, I see it being done on paper at least in the foreseeable couple of years.

But that being said, there's been discussions that various types of businesses or types of entities can issue electronic invoices. Now this hasn't been implemented yet but it has been discussed again in connection with this proposed VAT increase and it's interesting to bring it back to the forefront. Again the court of translation of the Thai revenue department rd.geo.th website, that registrants submitting an application for approval of the director or those who want to do e-filing, e-tax invoicing have to go ahead submit an application for approval of the director general of the department. They have to meet certain criteria, they have to be either a limited or public limited company, they have to have paid up capital of at least 10 million Baht or more. They can be a government agency as well. They need to at least show some history of doing business. That remains to be seen, exactly what that means and how enforcement of that would be implemented. And they need to have some sort of internal control mechanism with respect to the periods they are counting/undertaking. 

So it's been proposed to do this. It doesn't exist yet. I think it will exist at some point in the fairly near future. I think e-tax invoicing will definitely come out probably with a VAT increase. But for now, as mentioned on a previous video, VAT does not look like it's going to be increased any time soon. And as of now, there has not been implementation of the e-tax invoice plan. So it doesn't exist yet.

It will probably exist I suspect sometime in the next three to five years. We're going to see some kind of a program implemented to deal with e-tax invoice most notably because it makes things easier, more efficient and any time governments can increase efficiency in revenue generation like they are doing. So I think it's fairly logical to see them fairly soon.

But as noted, this is not probably going to be immediately available to smaller enterprises as again, it was noted that it's got to be companies with at least 10 million Baht registered capital or more at least to begin with. I suspect eventually this is going to be possible across the board but for at least the foreseeable future, it looks like e-tax invoicing is not going to be immediately available but in the future will be available, although it will only be available to rather sort of medium-size and larger enterprises.