(Rejected) Thailand Aims to Improve Tax Collection with Blockchain Technology

The Excise Department of the Government of Thailand revealed its plans to use blockchain technology in its tax and revenue collections for the 2021 fiscal year. Per a report from the local news media The Bangkok Post, the plan to use utilize blockchain technology in revenue collections was made known by Lavaron Sangsnit, the department’s director-general. 

According to Lavaron, the importance of taxes cannot be over-emphasized in the country’s grand plan towards economic recovery in the coming years following the coronavirus pandemic. The Excise department thus believes that maximizing the processes of tax collections will benefit the economy much more than raising taxes which can affect local businesses. 

“Raising taxes may stunt the economic recovery, leading the department to study tax collection of new goods rather than raising rates,” said Mr. Lavaron. With plans to meet a tax revenue target of 530 billion baht, a fair figure compared to the 548 billion baht raised in 2020, the department hopes to build Blockchain applications that will help to identify the price, import duty, and tax liability of each imported product.

“The technology can help thoroughly assess revenue collection for each department and integrate revenue collection of the three government departments into a single database,” said Lavaron.

Amongst the agencies billed to use the blockchain applications include the Revenue and the customs department respectively.

Thailand’s Affinity and Trust In Blockchain Technology Finds New Uses

Thailand as a nation has a lot of trust in blockchain technology as evident in its agencies’ use of the emerging technology in the past years. Besides the current plans to deploy the technology in tax collections, the country’s Finance Ministry had profiled blockchain technology to revamp its service delivery system.

In a complementary move, the Bank of Thailand also completed its first digital bond issuance with blockchain technology back in September.