THAI ACCOUNTANT gets this question very often.

There are vendors in Thailand (or outside Thailand) that will not let your Thai company withhold taxes from them saying that their prices do not include taxes. Well, the Thai tax law makes it your duty to withhold some taxes when you pay for certain things. If you do not withhold the tax, you will have to still submit it to the Thai Revenue Department using your own money.

THAI ACCOUNTANT has 3 choices for you to consider:
1. Withhold taxes from those vendors anyway. If any of them do not let you, then you may want to find other vendors to work with.
2. You may choose to submit the taxes on behalf of the vendors (because you did not withhold from the vendors). The taxes you pay on behalf of the vendors who are juristic persons (companies and registered partnerships) will become an add-back expense, which you cannot use to lower your corporate income tax liability. Only the taxes paid on behalf of individuals can be tax deductible expense.
3. You may choose to let your vendors increase their prices by the amount of tax that you have to withhold. This way, the tax you withhold is officially not paid by you. So the tax amount will not be an add-back expense.

THAI ACCOUNTANT prefers choice 1 because it is the law. They need to let you withhold the tax from the payment and hopefully you are in the field where you do not have to deal with the vendors who do not want to comply with the law.

Good Thai accountants will deal with those tough vendors for you.

When a company in Thailand pays travel insurance premium for their employees, the premium will be considered the employees’ assessable income, which needs to be included in their personal income tax calculation unless all the following conditions are met:

1. Only the premium covering medical expenses is allowed.
2. The premium is paid to an insurance company operating in Thailand.
3. The premium is for a group insurance policy (not for individual employees) with coverage of not longer than one year.

For Thai accountants who want to refer to the Thai tax law, the Ministerial Regulations No. 126 (1966), section 2 (77), specifies the conditions of insurance premiums if paid by an employer on behalf of the employee, that will be exempt from the tax calculation purpose. If not all of the conditions are met, the paid premium has to be added to the employee’s personal income (to calculate his withholding tax) at the end of the month since the Thai tax law consider the insurance premium an added benefit derived from work.

Experienced Thai accountants know that the Thai Revenue Department has a more lenient practice. If the company has a written policy that it will pay for the travel insurance for its employees when travelling for the company’s business, the premium will not become the employee’s assessable income (even though not all of the above conditions are met). This policy should be signed by the authorized signatory and kept in the company main document file. Good Thai accountants know to attach one copy to the insurance premium payment voucher.

Doing business in Thailand, you want to work with good Thai accountants. MSNA can help with your Thailand tax and accounting needs.

Auditors in Thailand who are also certified public accountants need to do their audit work in compliance with the Thai Auditing Standards. Thai auditing standards have a long history. However, now Thai Auditing Standards follow the International Standards on Auditing (ISA) issued by International Federation of Accountants (IFAC). Thailand Federation of Accounting Professions (FAP) translates and reviews ISA and announces the date each module to be adopted among the Thai auditors. Currently FAP has published 37 modules of Thai Auditing Standard which will take effect as the Thai Auditing Standards in 2011.

If you have a company in Thailand, you should know that your Thai accounting staff may not know everything your Thai company should file in a year. Even if you hire a Thai accounting firm to handle your accounting, you need to make sure they do their job.

Here is a brief summary of what should be filed by a Thai company, but keep in mind that depending on many factors, there may be more forms that your company should file than these:

Yearly:

• Within 31 January, file form Kor Tor 26 Kor “Workmen Compensation Fund Estimate for the year …. (current year)” with the Social Security Office.
• Within 28 February, file form Kor Tor 20 “Employees Compensation Sheet to attach to Form Kor Tor 20 Kor for the year….(previous year)” and also make payment with the form Kor Tor 20 Kor with the Social Security Office.
• Within 7 February, file form “Information of foreign employees’ income” with the Revenue Department (together with the monthly PND 1 of January (see the monthly filing below). Also if during the year there is any foreign employee joining or leaving the company, this form must be filed within ^7th of the month following the transaction.
• Within 28 February, file PND 1 Kor with the Revenue Department. This is the return that summarizes all the employees’ income and tax withheld throughout the previous year.
• Within 30 April (or within 4 months after the accounting year-end), hold an AGM (Annual General shareholders’ Meeting) to approve the prior year financial statements.
• Within 27 May, (or within one month after the AGM, whichever comes first), file the audited financial statements and the copy of list of shareholders as of the AGM date with the Department of Business Development, the Ministry of Commerce.
• Within 27 May, (or within 150 days after the accounting year-end) file the audited financial statements and Corporate Income Tax Return (PND 50) with the Revenue Department.
• Within 31 August, (or within 2 months after the first half of your accounting year) file the interim corporate income tax return (PND 51) with the Revenue Department.

Monthly:

• Within the 7^th of the month, file the withholding tax returns (PND 1, 3, 53 and 54 if any) of the previous month with the Revenue Department. Also VAT return form 36 (PP 36), if any, must be filed.

PND 1 shows all the taxes withheld from the employees’ salaries.

PND 3 shows all the taxes withheld from the suppliers who are individuals.

PND 53 shows all the taxes withheld from the suppliers who are juristic persons.

PND 54 is shows all the taxes withheld from paying the suppliers overseas.

PP 36 is the Valude Added Tax (VAT) return that the company files on behalf of its overseas suppliers. Because overseas suppliers are not registered in the Thai VAT system, when the company makes payment to them, it has to submit 7% VAT on behalf of them. The VAT amount will become the company’s input tax (thus can be claimed back) in the month that the company submits it.

• Within the 15^th of the month, file the monthly Valude Added Tax (VAT) return (PP 30) with the Revenue Department. This form summarizes the input and output VAT of the previous month and it has to be filed even if there are no transactions. If the company is not registered in the VAT system, it cannot file this form.
• Within the 29^th of the month, file the social security form “Sor Por Sor 1-10” with the Social Security Office. This form shows all the social security contribution deducted from the employees’ salaries and the contribution made by the company from the previous month.

Good Thai accounting companies (like MSNA) know to file all those forms for their accounting clients. However, you may be surprised that many Thai accounting firms don’t.

Welcome to MSNA Ltd, your business partner in doing business in Thailand. We are Thai accountants who know the Thai Accounting Law and Thai Tax Law very well. We provide not only accounting services, but also many other services necessary for helping you do business in Thailand. If you have any questions, be it Thai accounting or Thai tax related or anything to do with doing business in Thailand, please email us at info@msnagroup.com.