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Thailand: Agency drafts law on tax transparency

The Revenue Department plans to propose a draft law on the exchange of financial account information of non-residents to the cabinet, according to director-general Lavaron Sangsnit.

He said parliament ratified the Multilateral Competent Authority Agreement on Automatic Exchange of Financial Account Information on Sept 6.

The agreement provides a standardised mechanism to facilitate the automatic exchange of information, in accordance with Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development standards.

After parliament’s passage of the agreement on Sept 6, the department started drafting the law to support such information exchange.

The agreement is aimed at ensuring local and international tax transparency.

It requires signatories to exchange the financial account information of non-tax residents once a year.

There are 117 signatory countries, including Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia.

Once the law takes effect, Thailand is expected to start the information exchange with the signatories in September 2023.

The move is aimed at promoting transparency and fair treatment regarding international taxation practices, similar to other countries, Mr Lavaron said.

Earlier Thailand signed the Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters multilateral convention with 160 countries for tax authorities across jurisdictions to share companies’ information for the purpose of tax collection.

The move is in line with Thailand’s introduction of the e-service tax law last September.

The law requires foreign electronic service providers and platforms with income of more than 1.8 million baht per year from providing e-services to non-VAT registered customers in Thailand to register for value-added tax (VAT).

Source: https://www.bangkokpost.com/business/2387641/agency-drafts-law-on-tax-transparency