Thai limited companies, representative offices and branch offices of foreign companies in Thailand need to submit a mid-year (or interim) corporate income tax return (Form PND 51) to the Revenue Department within 2 months after the end of the first 6 months of their accounting year. Most of such juristic persons use 31 December as the fiscal year-end, so the deadline to file their interim corporate tax return is 31 August of each year. If your accounting year-end is 30 June, then you need to file PND 51 within the end of February.

Penalties:

If you file PND 51 later than the deadline, you need to pay Baht 1,000 – 2,000 late submission fine (Baht 1,000 if not later than 7 days). Plus you will have to pay 20% on top of the amount of tax owed.

How to calculate mid-year tax for most companies:

In theory, the Thai Revenue Department wants you to prepay your tax at mid year using the best estimates of total revenues and expenses to derive your estimated profit for the year and divide it by two to get half year’s profit. From there, you calculate your corporate tax using the current tax rate. Most companies use the actual operating results from their 6 months’ income statement and forecast the second half of the year’s operating result in order to get the year’s estimated incomes and expenses. However, during the second half of the year sometimes your actual profit turns out to be much higher or lower than what you estimated and reported in the PND 51.

What happens if you under-estimate your mid-year tax?

You may have to pay for some penalties if you underpaid your interim tax. If at the end of the year, your actual profit is more than 125% of your estimated profit that you filed on your mid-year corporate tax return, then you will have to pay 20% fine on the underpaid tax. There are very few exceptions. The one and only that will apply to most cases is that if at mid-year the tax you paid is more than 50% of your last year’s tax, then you will not have to pay for the fine.

Suppose you estimated a mid year tax of THB 70 (or 140 for the year from an estimated profit of THB 700), but at the end of the year, you happen to make a profit of THB 1,000, thus you have a tax of THB 200 for the year. That means at mid year, you should have submitted the tax for the half year of THB 100. So you will have to pay a fine of 20% on THB 30 underpaid tax (100 – 70). However, if last year, your income tax was THB 130, fifty per cent of which is 65, then even though this year’s actual tax is much more than the mid-year tax you paid, you will not have to pay for the fine because your mid-year tax was THB 70 and higher than 50% of last year’s tax.

Now what happens if you over-estimated your mid-year tax? Suppose you thought you would make a profit of THB 1,000 for the year (or THB 500 for half year), so you paid tax of THB 100 (tax rate is 20%) on half year’s profit. At the end of the year it turns out you have a loss. You may seek to get a refund on the tax you paid at mid year. However, asking for a tax refund is essentially inviting the Revenue Department to audit your company. So most companies are willing to let go of their overpaid tax. Therefore, planning your mid-year tax is very important.

The best technique to fill out the mid-year corporate income tax return:

Normally the estimates should be done in a way that the tax to be paid at midyear will be a little over 50% of last year’s tax. This is so that if at year-end you end up having so much profit, there will be no fines for under-estimating your mid-year tax. If your last year’s tax was zero due to the year’s operating loss, you can just estimate your profit of this year using any figures. Let’s use ones that will result in a very little tax to pay at mid-year. This way, whatever real profit you have at year end will not result in a penalty and if you have a loss, you can forego the prepaid tax easily.

Consult MSNA for all your accounting and tax needs in Thailand.

This article is about tax on earnings which an employee received from the employer concerning the agreement of compromise. When the employee whose working period is not less than 120 days is terminated, the employer has to pay the employee the compensation according to the Thai Labor Law. The amount of the compensation depends on how long the employee has been working with the employer. This compensation is not subject to tax.

In the case that there is a dispute on unlawful termination in the labour court, if there is a monetary offer from the employer to settle the case and the employee accepts it, both parties can agree in front of the judge. The amount received according to the agreement of compromise before the judge is subject to tax because it is not considered a compensation stipulated in Labour Protection Act. It is considered an income under Section 40(1) of the Revenue Code, which shall be treated the same way as a monthly salary. Therefore, the employer has to deduct withholding tax at the progressive rate from the amount of settlement.

For questions regarding Thailand labour law, please contact our legal team at ThaiLawyers.com

Business people frequently have problems concerning the Thai taxation and cannot find the answers in the Revenue Code. Therefore, it is necessary for them to consult with the revenue department of Thailand. In some cases, you can ask an official verbally to get answers. However the best way is to write a letter detailing the tax question to the Revenue Department. The answer obtained with this process is called ‘’ruling’’.

Ruling is a letter written by people who have tax problems for consulting with Revenue Department to get their official answers. The following is how to get a Revenue Department’s ruling.

1. The letter should be addressed to the Director-general of the Revenue Department.
2. You should describe the problem clearly with the details and attach it with supporting documents.
3. If possible, you should ask the question in reference to the Revenue Code by specifying sections or terms in the code because the answer will refer to the terms and sections of the law.
4. You should keep a copy of the answer from the Revenue Department (ruling) and a copy of your letter for future reference.

However, ruling is only a legal opinion given by the legal team of the Revenue Department. It is not the law. Taxpayers are not obliged to follow it.

Contact MSNA for any tax and accounting needs in your doing business in Thailand.

Our company in Thailand will have a sales meeting in Hua Hin, thus we need to engage van transports for our associates. The vendor said that he is not registered as Private Limited or Company Limited; thus the payment will be to the company’s owner even though all transactions, quotation and billing will be under his company name. The invoice will not include tax; The THB 4,000 quotation is NETT.

Our question is can we pay him even though he is not a company?

Answer: It is OK that he is not a company. When you pay hi, you will have to ask for his ID card copy duly signed indicating that he received the amount of money from you. You said his quoted price was not. We assumed that he will not let you withhold 1% tax (transportation is subject to 1% withholding tax), then your company will have to bear it. You have to submit the withholding tax to the Thai Revenue Department even though you did not withhold it.

Contact MSNA for all your accounting and tax questions.

When a branch office of a foreign company has obtained a Foreign Business License from the Department of Business Development as required by Thailand Foreign Business Law, can it start operation without VAT registration?

You can start the operation of the branch office now. However, if your sales will reach Baht 1.8 M within the time before VAT registration, please refrain from issuing the invoice (whose amount will make the total sales to-date reach Baht 1.8 M) until you have registered VAT.

When a company’s gross income has not reached Baht 1.8 M in an accounting year for the first time, it is not required to be in the VAT system. However, your customers normally will not understand this and they will ask you for a tax invoice anyway. So that means you should register VAT before you make income from sales or services. If you are not registered in the VAT system, you cannot issue a tax invoice. You can only issue an invoice and a receipt and you cannot collect VAT from your customers. VAT can be collected by the companies that are registered in the VAT system.

Learn about Thailand VAT here.

Today, we got a question from one of our accounting clients regarding VAT.

Question:

I have just purchased a plane ticket for a business trip overseas and the travel agency issued a Tax Invoice/Receipt but shows 0 VAT. Is this correct?

Answer:

Yes, the receipt is correct. They cannot collect VAT from you when it is air ticket or transportation.

Tour companies; usually have pre-printed form of receipt/tax invoice so they can also use it when they arrange tours, which they need to collect VAT from their clients. When they receive money for just transportation, they cannot collect VAT and this paper should be called only “receipt”. For them to do it correctly, they need to cross out the word “Tax Invoice”, but if they did not do it, it is not your problem because there is no VAT that you will wrongly claim back anyway.

Contact MSNA for your Thailand accounting and tax questions.

One of our accounting clients asked a question about VAT on their export.

I would like to know if the export portion of my product sales which is roasted whole coffee beans grown, roasted and packed in Thailand, is classified as 0% VAT? The challenge is that I export only 1 or 2 kg per shipment and it is done by EMS courier and then sent via a Thai Post Office. I do not export from an airport or customs point. Kindly clarify. I have been told conflicting answers and I can’t seem to find a definitive answer. Your assistance is greatly appreciated.

Thai Accountant answered: When you export products from Thailand, you must do it via customs. Sending it by post or EMS, you still can declare it with the Customs Department of Thailand. You need to tell the post office that you want to declare Customs, which normally is done using form EMS Por 256. When exporting your products using DHL or Fedex, you need to tell them that you want to send your products through customs. They will prepare some customs export shipment papers for you.

If you do not have Customs export shipment papers, the Thai Revenue Department will treat your sale as domestic one, which is subject to 7% VAT.

Contact MSNA for your accounting and tax questions.

One of our tax clients is planning to purchase a condominium unit in Bangkok. He asked us if there is any tax to be paid to the authorities. Today, we answer his question based on two scenarios: if the condominium will be purchased under his name or the company’s name.

1. When he buys it in his name, he needs to hold it for 5 years otherwise, he has to pay for Specific Business Tax (SBT) 3.3% of the selling price when he sells it on top of the 2% transfer fee and his personal income tax because it will be considered as purchasing a condo for business purpose. However, if he sells the unit after 5 years, he doesn’t have to pay for SBT of 3.3% although he needs to pay for the transfer fee and income tax.

2. When the purchase is done in company’s name, the company has to pay the transfer fee plus Specific Business Tax 3.3% of the selling price whether he sells it before 5 years or after. Although we are not yet sure how much corporate income tax the company has to pay in the future, tax will be based on the net profit of the company, part of which is the profit from selling the condominium. Furthermore, if he use it personally, when the Revenue Department comes to check the condominium and they know that he is staying there, they will make the company charge him for rent and this will be part of company’s income. The company can also use the depreciation of the condo as company’s expenses.

Contact MSNA for your accounting, tax and other business needs in Thailand.

Today, we answer a question from one of our accounting clients regarding the tax withheld by overseas-based company. Can they recover this cost?

In theory, the tax withheld by another country should be a tax credit to the Thai company, but only if the company makes profit and will have to pay tax, then this tax credit will lower the amount of tax check it has to pay to the Revenue Department.

Hence, to use the withholding tax as tax credit, the company needs the following documents to prove it:

1. The withholding tax certificate issued by the client overseas, and has to attach its Thai translation too.
2. The proof of payment for the service on the transaction.

Know more about Thailand withholding tax and how it works. Contact MSNA for your Thailand accounting and tax questions.

Today, one of our accounting clients has asked us about any tax implications of reimbursing phone and car expenses to their employees.

Question:

As a company policy, we have to reimburse phone bills of our employees provided that their personal phones are used in doing their jobs. When we pay our employees for such expense, do we have to withhold any tax? Please advise.

Answer:

Normally, when the company provides mobile phone allowance to employees, this benefit will be part of their income and therefore subject to personal income tax. But since it is in your company policy to pay phone bills to your employees who used their personal phones for the company’s business, this is not considered as employee’s benefits and therefore, is not subject to withholding tax. However, you just have to make sure that phone expenses were related to your company’s business and the employees provide the original bill. Phone expenses are to be reimbursed on an actual basis, but should not exceed THB 1,000.

Contact MSNA for your Thailand accounting and tax questions.