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.