The Investment Promotion Act B.E. 2520 (BOI Act) was amended and this amendment has been effective since 25 January 2017. The official English translation has not yet been published on the BOI website (2 Feb 2017). We summarize the material changes to the BOI Act as follows;
- Granting import duty exemption for the imported material used for research and development inclusive of the related training (Section 30/1);
- Granting Corporate Income Tax (CIT) exemption not exceeding 13 years for the project undertaking advanced technology and innovation or research and development (Section 31/1);
- Investment Tax Allowance (ITA) : amount of investment invested in the promoted business could be treated as allowance from the net profits of any years, within 10 years from the date of deriving first income from the promoted business, up to 70% of the amount invested, apart from normal depreciation (Section 31/2);
- Granting CIT deduction not exceeding ten years for the project that it is viewed by the BOI not to grant the CIT exemption (Section 32);
- Allowing the calculation of net profit and net loss of a promoted person who has been granted corporate income tax privileges shall be pursuant to the Revenue Code (Section 32/1);
- Allowing dividends derived from the promoted project to be exempted from tax and can be paid within six months after the tax exemption period ends (Section 34);
- Granting a promoted person the following one or more special rights and benefits (Section 36):
- Exemption of import duty on raw and essential materials imported for using, producing, mixing, or assembling products or commodities exclusively for exportation purpose;
- Exemption of import duty on items which a promoted person imports for re-exportation; and
- Exemption of export duty on products or commodities, which a promoted person produces or assembles.
However, there will be specific announcements issued by the BOI office in order to clarify more information or conditions to obtain incentives under the amendment law.
In addition, there is an investment law named “Competitiveness Enhancement Act” under the BOI office responsibility which will be announced and become effective very soon. This new law will grant many incentives to the promoted person in ‘target industries’ e.g. CIT exemption 15 years, obtaining ‘grant’ or ‘subsidy’ from the fund set by the Thai government, etc.
The online version on our website is available here.
Please contact Audray Souche or Suradech Hongsa if you would like further information.
