Tax News No. 267 March 2019

Tax News No. 267 March 2019

Land and Building Tax Act B.E.2562 (2019)

    Land and Building Tax Act B.E.2562 (2019) will be effective on the following day of published in Government Gazette, 13 March 2019.  Collecting tax for land and building under this new law shall be enforced on and from 1 January B.E. 2563 (2020).
Land and Building Tax B.E. 2562 (2019) is to replace house and land tax and local maintenance tax, to efficiently collect income by the local organizations, to solve social inequality, to solve the speculate problem and to utilize land.  The new Land and Building Tax categorizes 4 purposes of property and prescribes the tax rates based on the appraisal value of the property as follows:

 1.   Land and Building for Agricultural use with a tax ceiling of 0.15%

    There is a tax exemption for agricultural land worth up to THB 50 million belonging to individuals, and the new law will not be applicable to individual owners for the first three years.

    2.   Land and Building for residential use with a tax ceiling of 0.30%

   
    For the main residence, there is a tax exemption of up to THB 50 million for owners of both the land and home, whose names are on the household registration documents, and up to THB 10 million for those who own homes only and whose names are on household registration documents.

    3.   Land and Building for commercial use with a tax ceiling of 1.20%

4.   Vacant or unused property with a tax ceiling of 1.20%

The tax rate will start at 0.30% and the rates will increase by 0.30% every three years.

    Tax Exemption

Tax Exemption for land and building according to this act are as follows :- public property, religious property, property of international organization, embassy, consulate , property of Red Cross Society, private property that allowed the official to use as public interest, common property, public utility land

    Relieve Tax burden

Firstly, this act shall be exempted the tax for individual owner of land and building which uses agriculture propose in the first three years. Secondly, the taxpayer who has to pay tax more than the previous(comparable with the house and land tax or local maintenance tax) shall be entitled to relieve tax burden for the first three years by paying in some part of increasing tax as follows :
The 1 st     year pay 25% of the increasing tax
The 2nd     year pay 50% of the increasing tax
The 3 rd     year pay 75% of the increasing tax

   The result of consideration on effect by adopting the new Labor Protection Act

“The letter of the Joint Standing Committee on Commerce, Industry and Banking “subject on consideration about how to recognize accounting record by adopting the new labor protection law, prescribes the severance pay in case that the employer terminates the contract of the employee who has worked for uninterrupted period of twenty years or more, the employee shall be entitled to receive payment of four hundred days’ work at not less than their last rate.

The board of federation of accounting professions on 23rd January B.E. 2562(2019) made a resolution as follows :
•    In publicly accountable entities or non-publicly accountable entities that adopt accounting standard No. 19 subject on employees’ benefit (“Entities”) paragraph 103.1, these entities shall recognize the recently service cost as expenses when these entities revise the project plan. Therefore, these entities will recognize the recently service cost as expenses in B.E. 2561 (2018) or B.E.2562(2019) according to the discretion of these entities that decide which year projects are subjects to revise.

•    In non- publicly accountable entities (NPAEs), the entities shall estimate provision according to the discretion of management section when the obligations occur (according to transaction recognition in paragraph 304 of the Thai financial reporting standards for non- publicly accountable entities). They shall be recorded as expenses in profit and loss statements.

The committee of federation of accounting professions would like to announce this result to all relevant people.
 
     Personal Income Tax Refund

Revenue Department News
News No. : 23/2019
Date       : 15th February 2019
Subject   : Personal Income Tax Refund
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    The Revenue Department of Thailand innovates, to serve the public better, which is the improvement of personal income tax refund process so that direct deposit of personal income tax refund can be made via PromptPay. The purpose of this improvement is to facilitate taxpayers by reducing the time needed to travel for depositing the checks into their accounts, reducing the waiting time for the checks to be delivered, solving the problems of undelivered/lost checks, and reducing the public cost of issuing and mailing the refund checks. However, some taxpayers are not willing to have their personal income tax refunds directly deposited into their accounts via PromptPay at the moment. In that case, the taxpayer can bring the notice of personal income tax refund that the Revenue Department mails to them, along with their ID cards or any proof of identification, to receive their tax refunds at the bank, within the date specified in the notice.
    Mr. Vinit Visessuvanapoom, Director of the Tax Collection Standards Division acting as a Deputy Spokesman of the Revenue Department, said that in the case that a foreign taxpayer receives the notice of personal income tax refund from the Revenue Department but cannot go to the bank by himself/herself because he/she has gone out of the country, the taxpayer can assign a lawful representative to act on his/her behalf. The representative has to bring the notice of personal income tax refund sent from the Revenue Department by mail, along with the proof of lawful representation, to receive the tax refund at a Krungthai Bank PCL branch, within the date specified in the notice.
    Such process is also applied for the other cases that the taxpayer cannot go to get the tax refund at the bank by himself/herself and has a lawful representative, such as the case that the taxpayer is deceased, disabled, incompetent, or quasi-incompetent. Regardless of the nationality of the taxpayer, he/she can assign a lawful representative to act on his/her behalf.
    For a group of persons, ordinary partnership, community enterprise, or undivided estate, the director or manager of them can also bring the notice of personal income tax refund sent from the Revenue Department by mail, along with the proof of lawful representation, to receive the tax refund at a Krungthai Bank  PCL branch, within the date specified in the notice.
The Krungthai Bank PCL will improve the system so that it can serve those taxpayers, starting from 24th February 2019.

Notification of the central registration office for company and Partnership
   
Subject : The person who can witness the signature for applicant for registration of partnership and limited company in B.E. 2562 (2019)

For convenience and business agility in the registration of partnership and limited company, the regulation about signing at a registration shall be amended in case that the applicant cannot sign in the presence of a registrar.
Based on the exercise of Clause 6(1)(C)under the Ministerial Regulations on  establishment of the company and partnership registration office, appointment of a registrar and prescription of the rules and procedures for registration of  partnership and limited company in B.E. 2549 issued  under the Civil and  Commercial  code. The registrar gives the official notice as follows :-
                          Clause 1 The Notification of the central registration office for the company and partnership about  the person who can witness the signature of applicant for registration of partnership and limited company B.E. 2558 (2015) dated 16 October B.E. 2558(2015) shall be repealed.
Clause  2  The following person should be the person who witnessed the signature for registration of partnership and limited companies.
(1)   Director of the Thai board of commerce
(2)   Director of the Thai chamber of commerce
(3)   Director of a provincial chamber of commerce
(4)   Director of a foreign chamber of commerce registered in Thailand
(5)      Director of the federation of Thai Industries
(6)   Director of a provincial federation of industries
(7)   Director of Thai national shippers’ council
(8)   Director of the federation of accounting professions
(9)   Licensed certified public auditor under the law on accounting professions
(10)     Accountant who is a member of the federation of accounting professions or registered with the federation of accounting professions
(11) Head of an accounting firm or managing partner or director of an accounting firm accredited for quality by the department of business development (quality accounting firm) who is a member of the federation of accounting professions or registered with the federation of accounting professions in accordance with the list submitted by the quality accounting firm to the registrar.
(12) The licensee who act as a security enforcer under the law of business security act

This notification shall come into force as since this.

        Issued on the 1st  March B.E. 2562 (2019)
                  (Mr. Wutthikai Leverapun)
        Director-General of the Department
                   of Business Development
                   The Central Registrar