Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing VAT, that's Value-added Tax here in Thailand and it now appears that Thai Customs is going to begin collecting VAT on all goods imported into Thailand as of May 2024. I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Nation, that's nationthailand.com, the article is titled: Thailand hits all imports with 7% VAT to create level playing field. Quoting directly: "From May, all imported goods will be subjected to a 7% Value-added Tax (VAT) the Finance Ministry said. Lavaron Sangsnit, the Ministry's Permanent Secretary, said on Monday that the Cabinet has greenlit the decision to impose the VAT on all imported goods regardless of the price." 

Now when I first heard this, as folks who maybe watch this channel somewhat avidly know, not a big fan of tax. So when I first heard this I was like kind of 'groan'. Let me get to the end of this because there's some further analysis; this might not be as bad of a thing as I initially thought. Quoting further: "In the Revenue Code, tax laws are consolidated allowing for VAT to be collected only on goods subject to import duties. Since no customs duty is charged for imported goods worth less than 1,500 Baht, they are also exempted from VAT," Lavron said. However, the Finance Ministry is working on separating the two tax components to allow VAT to be collected from the first Baht ensuring fairness within the system." So to kind of clarify that further, quoting further: "It is believed that the new measure will improve the competitiveness of local small businesses and control the influx of cheap Chinese products being sold via e-commerce platforms like Lazada, Shopee and TikTok Shop." So interesting. 

Again, I am not ever going to be somebody who's like "yay tax", but that not exactly seems to be the impetus here. The impetus here seems to be that certain of these cheap products under roughly $50 US if you are looking at it from a dollar perspective, but 1,500 Baht, in the past there was no real VAT on this because I think they did kind of a cost/benefit they said look it's going to take all kinds of Government initiative to enforce and collect that. We don't really have the resources nor the inclination to do that so we will just sort of set a bottom floor under which you can sell without needing to worry about VAT. One of the weird upshots of that was local businesses seem to be struggling against the onslaught of cheap foreign imports and as a result of that, it looks like the Government has taken it upon themselves to put taxes on even those imports so as to create - I think as they said even in the article – a more sort of level playing field with regard to those businesses here in Thailand trying to sell to the local market. So again it is kind of a win/lose I guess or good news/bad news kind of situation insofar as the bad news is yeah it is more tax at the end of the day; a lot of arguments to be made against that. But there is something of a silver lining insofar as it does look like the Government is at least going out of their way to try and help businesses here in the Kingdom of Thailand.