The Revenue Department anticipates that energy businesses, financial institutions, and tourism will continue to serve as primary revenue sources, making substantial contributions to tax revenues this year, according to the department’s head.
Kulaya Tantitemit, the department’s director-general, highlighted the strong performance of these sectors in terms of tax payments during the first nine months of fiscal 2024 (from October 2023 to June 2024).
Conversely, the real estate sector has faced a downturn this year, resulting in lower tax contributions. Nonetheless, the department is optimistic about a potential recovery in the latter part of this year following government initiatives to stimulate the sector.
In April, the government introduced real estate stimulus measures, including reductions in mortgage and transfer fees. Transfer fees were slashed from 2% to 0.01%, and mortgage fees from 1% to 0.01%. Moreover, developers constructing homes priced up to 1.5 million baht were granted a corporate income tax exemption for three years.
These initiatives, coupled with favorable interest rates on housing loans from the Government Housing Bank, have injected 65 billion baht into the economy.
In terms of expanding the tax base, Ms. Kulaya mentioned that the Revenue Department has contacted 100,000 individuals with income who are not yet included in the tax system, encouraging them to comply. About 50,000 individuals have already done so, and efforts will continue to engage the remaining individuals.
Furthermore, amendments to tax laws now impose value-added tax (VAT) on goods valued under 1,500 baht, previously exempt from import duty and VAT. This measure, effective from July 5, is expected to yield around 1.5 billion baht in revenue for the Revenue Department.
For fiscal year 2024 ending in late September, the department aims to achieve its revenue collection target of 2.26 trillion baht.
In the initial eight months of the fiscal year (October to May), the government garnered net revenue of 1.68 trillion baht, slightly below the target by 26.2 billion baht or 1.5%.
The key revenue contributors during this period were the tax departments. The Revenue Department collected 1.32 trillion baht, exceeding the target by 7.67 billion baht or 0.6%. The Excise Department obtained 349 billion baht, falling short of the target by 53.4 billion baht or 13.3%. The Customs Department collected 79 billion baht, surpassing the target by 2.73 billion baht or 3.6%.