Thailand Reduces Income Taxes To Woo Hollywood

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

16 January 2002

The Thai Government announced on Tuesday that it had agreed an income tax cut for foreign actors in order to encourage overseas movie makers to produce more films in the country.

Speaking to reporters, Suparat Kawakul, the Thai Revenue Department Chief, announced that following a weekly cabinet meeting, it had been decided to cut the income tax rates for foreign actors, which are currently levied at a progressive rate of between 5% and 30%, to a flat 10% rate.

According to Somsak Thepsuthin, a minister in the Prime Minister's office, the move follows complaints from several Hollywood studios last year: 'Actors who earned more than 100 million baht ($2.28 million) per film would not come for movie shooting here because of our high tax. They would go to our neighbours instead,' he explained.

Somsak revealed that the Thai government earned around $29 million in tax revenues from foreign film productions in 2001, up from just $12.5 million the previous year. He told reporters earlier this week that it is expected that, following the income tax changes, the figure will exceed $45 million in 2002.

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