Today, we got a question from one of our accounting clients whom we also assisted in getting BOI promotion for their software business in Thailand.

Question: As you may have already known, our sister company (which is not BOI promoted) has proposed to develop an application that will enable users to download e-books in exchange for payment on a monthly basis. Would this activity be considered as sales of goods which I believe are VAT-exempt or will this be qualified for zero rate VAT in case our customer downloaded and used the e-book abroad.

Answer:

We verified it with the Thai Revenue Department and according to them, downloading of e-books is not categorized as sales of newspaper, magazine and textbook but it should be treated as a service which is subject to VAT. Hence, the zero rate VAT applies if such service is used overseas.

Contact MSNA, English speaking Thai accountants for your Thai accounting and tax questions.