Inheritance tax to affect four assets on February
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PROPERTY, stocks, automobiles and cash are the four assets that will become subject to inheritance tax effective on February 1.
“Other inherited assets are not taxable,” Krisada Chinavicharana, director-general of the Fiscal Policy Office and Finance Ministry spokesman, told a news conference yesterday.
The Cabinet on Tuesday approved one law and six ministerial announcements to support the new tax when it becomes effective on February 1.
The legislation will be sent to the Office of the Council of State for approval before becoming law, Krisada said.
The inheritance tax is 5 per cent for heirs and 10 per cent for others. It is levied on assets worth above Bt100 million. It will be collected on four assets only, namely property, stocks, autos and cash. Other assets such as gold are not subject to the inheritance tax, he said.
“We cannot estimate how much inheritance tax will be collected in the first year after the [enabling] act becomes effective,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Finance Ministry announced that tax revenue in the first three months of the 2016 fiscal year (October to December 2015) was Bt581.3 billion, higher than the estimate of Bt64.54 billion.
December tax revenue alone was Bt235.51 billion, more than the estimate of Bt57.91 billion, thanks to the auction of telecom licences on the 1,800-megahertz spectrum that raked in Bt40.3 billion for the Revenue Department, Krisada said.
He said the ability of the three tax departments – Revenue, Excise and Customs – to collect more than estimated in the first quarter of the current fiscal year indicated that the economy was on the road to recovery.
He claimed this was due to the government’s stimulus measures to boost the economy, such as those supporting small and medium-sized enterprises, lower-income people, and the agricultural sector.
However, the benefits from the tax-incentive campaign to boost shopping during the last seven days of 2015 would not register until this month, he said.
