Undeveloped land tax to deter speculation

[William]

Tax to fund communities

Undeveloped land tax will deter speculation

WICHIT CHANTANUSORNSIRI
A new tax on land and buildings will set rates at relatively low levels, but should help raise considerable revenue for local development, according to Somchai Sujjapongse, an adviser to the Finance Ministry.

He said the ministry had completed its review of the new tax framework, which would be submitted to Finance Minister Chalongphob Sussangkarn shortly for review.

The new law would scrap the existing building tax as well as laws requiring a 12.5% tax on revenues from leases.

Instead, taxes will be collected from all land and properties nationwide, based on their official valuations as set under regular surveys by the Treasury Department.

Undeveloped and unused land will be assessed a higher tax rate under a policy to deter land speculation.

However, officials have scrapped a previous proposal to assess tax penalties that doubled each year against land speculators. A flat tax ceiling will be used instead, albeit at a rate higher than that set for normal land tax assessments.

The ministry has yet to announce the new tax rate, although officials say it will certainly be less than the existing 12.5%.

Tax assessments will also be charged based on a sliding scale for the first few years after the law becomes effective, with a 50% charge collected in the first year, 75% in the second and 100% in the third.

''The objective of the new law is to make land and building owners pay tax to local administrations to help support community development,'' Dr Somchai said.

He noted that New Zealand and Malaysia both used similar concepts for their land tax systems, with up to 90% of revenues going to local administrations and only 10% remitted to the central government.

This was the opposite of the tax system in Thailand, where local administrations now received only 10% of the land tax collected for properties in their jurisdictions while the vast majority went to the central government.
Authorities say that even though tax rates will likely be reduced from current levels, the expansion of the tax base would allow overall state revenues from land taxes under the new law to remain stable at around 20 billion baht per year.

[Butterfly]

fuck, annual property tax like in farang land ?

This country is going downhill

[Mid]

Land and building tax to be proposed next week
Dolsinee Kritayapimonporn

BANGKOK, 14 April 2010 (NNT) — The Finance Minister is ready to propose the land and building tax to the Cabinet meeting next Tuesday.

Even though the bill will affect a majority of wealthy individuals, Finance Minister Korn Chatikavanij expressed confidence that the government over the past year has been reinforcing understanding with different sides. The law will receive a positive response, as it promotes fairness, Mr Korn said. In addition, power will be distributed to local administrations where they have the authority to keep earning without having to submit it to the state.

The proposal will be made at the next Cabinet meeting on 20th April 2010.

The land and building tax will allow the government to impose an annual charge from purchases of property and land. Currently the government revenue is gained from the collection of income tax and value-added-tax (VAT), which creates social inequality when compared to the system of other countries.

The government will also set an evaluation frame for the 2011 fiscal budget by the end of the month for the cabinet to pass the four hundred billion THB loan bill.

thainews.prd.go.th

[Mid]

Cabinet approves land, building tax law
20/04/2010

The cabinet has agreed in principle to the land and building tax bill proposed by the Ministry of Finance, Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said on Tuesday.
“Main objective of this law is to ensure justice in society in terms of land ownership distribution.

"In addition, it will lead to the development of unused land and an increase in income for local administration organisations, not the central government,” Mr Abhisit said.

The Office of the Council of State will be responsible for the details of the proposed law, while public hearings on each issue will be held simultaneously.

The premier said there will be tax exemption for farmers who use their own lands to their own food, rice or other cash crops or for building ordinary homes.

More importantly, the income derived from land and building tax will be use for the setting up of a “land bank fund” which will be a channel for the government to provide fields to landless farmers.

He said the imposition of a land and building tax to improve social justice is a main policy of the government and the approval of the draft law is another step toward it.

bangkokpost.com

[crazy dog]

There was a big scramble a few weeks ago in shedland with hoards registering land. Seems everyone wants to get relatives registered as to who owns what so those who are meant to own the land get the bills. Very confusing and time consuming apparently, unless bribes were paid of course. All seems to have died down now.

[good2bhappy]

"agreed in principle"
so still some way off implementation

[bangkokbonecollector]

This is exactly what Abhisit said he was going to do a couple of years back and there we have it, it is being done.

Inheritance tax next and one further step to a better society !