Today THAI ACCOUNTANT gives a brief explanation of VAT in Thailand for the purpose of giving you a general idea of VAT that you need to know doing business in Thailand.

VAT (Value Added Tax) is the amount we collect from our customers when they buy our goods or services and we have to submit it (using the form PP.30) to the Thai Revenue Department within 15th of the following month. When we have registered our company into the VAT system, we need to file this form every month even the months we do not have any sales or income. If we fail to file the form, there is a fine of Bath 500 per form, plus the fine and interest on the amount of VAT owed.

Before we can submit PP.30, we need to prepare 2 reports; Output VAT Report and Input VAT Report (explained in detail down below). Then we take the month’s totals of these reports to fill into the form PP.30. If the amount of Output VAT is higher than the Input VAT (that means the sales VAT that we collected from our customers is more than the purchase VAT that we paid to our suppliers) then we have to pay the difference to the Revenue Department when we submit the form PP.30. If the Output VAT is less than the Input VAT, then we can choose to get the refund in cash (but it takes a lot of time and effort to try to get the refund because the Thai Revenue Department will have to check a lot of papers) or choose to take the difference to offset with the Output VAT of the following month. THAI ACCOUNTANT highly recommends you choose the latter.

Output VAT Report is the detailed summary of all the tax invoices we issue for the month for the sales of our goods (whether or not we have been paid) and for the services we provided and got paid for.

Note:
1. The law says that for goods, we have to issue a tax invoice when we receive a deposit (issue a tax invoice just for the deposit amount) or when we deliver the goods (issue a tax invoice for the whole amount of the sale minus the deposit received earlier, if any) whether or not we have been paid.
2. For services, we have to issue a tax invoice when we get paid (a deposit or the whole amount of service fees).

Input VAT Report is the detailed summary of all the tax invoices we get for the month from our suppliers when we buy goods and services from them (because they have to collect 7% from us too).

The tax invoices that can be filled into the Input VAT Report (thus the VAT can be claimed) are the ones that have the following particulars specified by law, i.e. the word “TAX INVOICE” (not “Tax Invoice Copy”), date of the tax invoice, tax invoice number, name and address of the tax invoice issuer, their tax ID number, name and address of the customer, description of the goods or services (and in case of goods, quantity and unit price) and the Thai Baht amount of the VAT separated from the total amount of the invoice. Please make sure there is no correction made anywhere in the tax invoice even if someone has initialed it. THAI ACCOUNTANT recommends you ask the issuer to issue a new one for you if there are any mistakes on the tax invoice.