Tax agencies to collaborate to ensure proper payment by companies
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Three state tax-collection agencies will soon work together more closely to improve efficiency and jointly monitor tax payments by large companies, Deputy Finance Minister Benja Louicharoen said.
The three agencies are the Revenue, Excise and Customs departments.
She said that these agencies could see loopholes that enabled some companies, especially those in export-import businesses, to file incomplete or incorrect tax paperwork. Therefore, the three agencies have to work together to solve this problem.
She said that in the first stage, the directors-general of the three departments would commit the agencies to exchanging tax information if requested to do so in doubtful cases. Then they will set up a joint team to examine information or documents to ensure these doubtful companies have paid their taxes correctly.
The ministry has yet to estimate whether this collaboration among the three agencies would boost tax revenue, but Benja is confident that the initiative will plug some loopholes and prevent tax avoidance to a certain level.
Thailand collected Bt1.96 trillion in tax revenue in the first 11 months of the 2013 fiscal year (October 12, 2012 to August 13, 2013), 2.7 per cent higher than the targeted Bt52 billion and 9.1 per cent higher than in the same period in the previous fiscal year.
The highest tax contributions were from auto excise and personal income tax. This indicated that the slowing economy has yet to have an impact on tax collection, the ministry said.
