There was recently a virtual meeting involving Thailand’s Committee on Monetary Affairs, Finance, Financial Institutions, and Financial Market, where they talked about imposing taxes on cryptocurrency.
Watanya Wongopasi, a ruling party member of parliament, posted on her Facebook page after the virtual meeting, revealing their discussion summary. In her post, she urges the Excise Department to perform a thorough investigation first before imposing taxes on the crypto trading market.
During the meeting, the Federation of Thai Capital Market Organizations chairman Paiboon Nalinthrangkurn stated that by taxing digital assets and stock trading, market liquidity could potentially decrease by 40%. Not only that, he noted that they could dissuade foreign and small investors from trading if they imposed heavy taxes.
On the other hand, iTAX CEO and founder Yutthana Srisavat had another proposition instead of a trading tax. Specifically, his proposal involved corporate tax or value-added tax instead. He also emphasized that since crypto has a decentralized nature, it would be nearly impossible to collect tax information because it wouldn’t be easy to gather information on the buyers and sellers.
The Thai Excise Department notes that it mainly had set its eyes on taxing the stock market. Not only that, it hadn’t made a lot of notable progress regarding taxing the crypto trade. However, the department assures that it will carefully and thoroughly study the crypto market before deciding whether to impose taxes.
Thai Fintech Association president Chonladet Khemarattana argued that the country should offer a free market to try and compete with other countries. He encourages the government to observe the crypto ecosystem’s growth before considering taxation.
The topic of crypto taxation has become a big one in Thailand, especially after a proposition was made to impose a 15% tax on crypto gains. Multiple executives, both current and former, expressed their disagreement against the proposal.
