Thailand plans to levy tax on e-commerce transactions

Prasong Poontaneat, Director-General of the Thai Revenue Department (Photo: Bangkok Post)

Bangkok (VNA) – Thailand will levy tax on cross-border e-commerce transactions, beginning in April, following the fast growth of e-commerce in the country recently. 

Prasong Poontaneat, Director-General of the Thai Revenue Department, said on March 7 that imposing turnover tax on digital marketing and advertising will the next target of the department.

The department is working with the Electronic Transactions Development Agency (ETDA) to impose specific taxes on domestic and foreign e-commerce businesses. 

ETDA Director Surangkana Wayuparb affirmed that the agency plans to cooperate with the department to change tax rates on cross-border e-commerce transactions. 

Existing laws only permit to impose taxes on companies located in Thailand while foreign e-commerce operators are not levied any tax.

Thailand’s e-commerce market was estimated at 2.5 trillion THB 71.3 billion USD) in 2016, up from 2.2 trillion 62.7 billion USD) in 2015.

Statistics released by ETDA show that there are about 300,000 companies operating in e-commerce in Thailand. However, only 2,000 companies registered with the tax system of the

Revenue Department, which contributed just 300 million baht (8.6 billion USD) in total revenue. 

Thailand’s Revenue Department plans to spend 2.3 billion THB (66.6 million USD) to install computers for e-tax services with an aim to boost revenues from value added tax (VAT) to at least 100 billion THB (2.8 billion USD) by 2022.-VNA