Thailand Introduces E-Payment Of Taxes

by Mary Swire, Tax-News.com, Hong Kong

13 June 2001

Thailand's Revenue Department has launched a facility for payments of VAT on-line, and says that by next year it will be possible to pay all types of tax electronically.

To pay taxes online, a taxpayer must apply for the service at www.rd.go.th. The Revenue Department then checks the taxpayer's identity before they receive a user ID and password. The taxpayer, however, must have an account at one of three commercial banks - Krung Thai, Siam Commercial or the Bank of Asia. Further banks will be added later.

To support the growth of users, the department plans to upgrade its system, replacing its current security software with Public Key and Private Key Infrastructure technology and doubling network bandwidth nationwide. Around 28 million baht has been set aside for this purpose.

Quoted in the Bangkok Times, Director of the Internet tax payment system department Praomart Huntra said that after closely monitoring VAT online payments for a month she had found that lack of confidence in e-transaction security was not the problem but rather a lack of basic computer skills of the taxpayer.

"This was because most taxpayers are accountants who are not familiar with operating computers. During the first month of the service, we had to teach them basic computer skills such as how to download a program or how to choose fonts," said Ms Praomart.

To solve the problem, the Revenue Department now provides an electronic manual with step-by-step procedures of how to use the program and email service and also offers training for taxpayers at the department's computer centre on Phaholyothin Road.

The Revenue Department started its online VAT payment service with the aim of offering an alternative means of payment for taxpayers, to decrease operating costs, to reduce mistakes due to human error and to get around operating hour limitations and also to be in line with the policy on e-government.

During May, some 135 companies had registered to use the service, but only 43 of these had fully submitted all the requested information. However only 24 companies had made e-payment transactions, with the value of e-tax payments being around 300,000 baht.

In June, 128 companies had applied for the service, with one company conducting a transaction this month so far.

"The hard part is to learn how to operate the program the first time, but after taxpayers know how they get used to it very quickly. The benefit is that our system can also help them check if they have filled out the right form or not. That can prevent errors while we can speed up our working process," she noted.

The online transactions can be made until 10 p.m. every day. After that, we send out a receipt by post to arrive the next day, said Revenue Department Director-General Suparut Kawatkul. The process can shorten the time for taxpayer to make a payment to only a few minutes, he noted.

Although the electronic commerce law has not yet been enforced, these e-payments can be conducted since there was a method to prove who the taxpayers were while when the payment was received there was a way to show that the payment had been complete, he added. Corporate taxpayers are also encouraged to use the online VAT payment system. Mr Suparut said if companies paid VAT on-line and were eligible for a VAT refund, they would receive it within 30 days, compared to a manual system, where the refund would take around 60 days.

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