Since 2012, Thailand´s current e-invoicing legal framework follows the ‘traditional’ rather than a real-time control approach by the Tax Administration. We have therefore so far categorized Thailand as a ‘post-audit’ territory.
Despite this, the Thai Revenue Department has currently an on-going e-invoicing project that aims to have a new e-invoicing legal framework in place from 2018. The Department is reviewing the current laws in order to streamline e-invoicing processes for all taxpayers. A first step towards this transition in March 2017 saw the Thai Revenue Department introduce a pilot project called the “e-tax invoicing via email” system for small e-commerce merchants. The Department’s next step will be to extend e-invoicing to large businesses in the near future.
Thailand – moving away from a post-audit system?
However, in the recent review of legislation and e-invoicing processes, the Thai Revenue Department has been closely (and extensively) working with the Electronic Transactions Development Agency on e-invoicing standards, which could be interpreted as the foundation for a move away from a simple post-audit system. As a result of this collaboration between Thai administrations, a number of technical standards and recommendations on IT and communication standards for B2B trading information exchange have been proposed. The scope of this standardisation work explicitly includes e-invoices.
Service providers involved in e-invoicing process
The Thai Revenue Department has recently stated that there will be service providers involved in the e-invoicing process. They will act as electronica data transmission channels for taxpayers and provide e-invoicing services to them. Service providers should be accredited and connected with the Department’s system, and systems used must comply with relevant security standards. That being said, it is currently still not entirely clear as to what extent Thailand is moving towards providing enhanced supervision tools to monitor and control taxpayer’s e-invoicing processes. The direction chosen for the Thai e-invoicing system will become clearer over the coming months. Sovos will continue to monitor Thailand developments closely and provide necessary updates as and when they are announced.
