Country loses Bt20 bn revenue from tax-evading luxury cars

DSI chief Tharit Pengdit made the estimate based on the assumption that more than 8,000 luxury vehicles in the country had been or were about to be registered illegally.
A total of 5,834 registered luxury cars were suspected of getting their papers through a tax-evasion process. Some 3,000 others were in the process of receiving registration papers through a system officials said was illegal.
Major Sukchart Sasomsap reported himself to the DSI last night, after a licence plate number that he once owned was linked to an alleged tax-evading vehicle.
Sukchart is a son of Labour Minister Phadermchai Sasomsap.
A DSI source earlier suggested the tax-evading scheme involved politicians or persons with political connections.
Many luxury cars were smuggled into the country, but were later registered under claims they were imported as auto parts and re-assembled later.
Tharit said Thailand has no facility to reassemble super cars. Therefore, super cars that have been registered as reassembled in Thailand must have used false documents.
The DSI will today search four facilities that have been identified as places where auto parts are assembled into super cars.
“But from information we have received, these places do not have the technology to assemble luxury cars. They are just godowns,” he said.
The DSI will today meet with the Land Transport Department, the Excise Department, the Customs Department and the Central Institute of Forensic Science to discuss tax-evading vehicle schemes.
The imported luxury cars are usually subject to a tax rate of between 200 and 314 per cent. Using certain illegal methods, the tax rate can be reduced to just 30 to 50 per cent.
The issue came under the spotlight after some luxury cars in a trailer caught fire in Nakhon Ratchasima while they were on their way to Si Sa Ket last week. Nobody has stepped forward to claim ownership of the vehicles.
One licence plate found among the burned cars allegedly had a link to Sukchart.
A senior policeman, Colonel Panu Buranasiri said some government officials must have been involved in the tax-evading scheme because relevant documents appeared genuine.
He is now looking into a request to retroactively register seven luxury cars in Si Sa Ket, and a case in Nakhon Ratchasima,” Panu said.
Transport Minister Chadchart Sittipunt also ordered a probe into the Nonthaburi Transport Office after statistics showed that up to 2,741 reassembled luxury vehicles were registered under its jurisdiction.
Meanwhile, Industry Ministry spokesman Nattapon Nattasomboon said there were 89 entrepreneurs registering themselves as car reassemblers. “But it seems only 10 have really operated their reassembling lines,” he said.
“If they don’t have the reassembling lines, they will face a maximum fine of Bt200,000 and/or a jail term of up to two years,” Nattapon said.
He added that the Thai Industrial Standards Institute (TISI) would work with the DSI in taking action against those behind reassembled vehicles that did not undergo TISI inspections.
“We plan to investigate reassembled motorcycles, too,” Nattapon said. He believed there were about 1,000 such motorcycles in Thailand.