The Finance Ministry is considering opening a one-stop centre that would combine essential data and services for three tax collection departments, says Deputy Finance Minister Tanusak Lekuthai.
He said since the tax laws are complicated and the tax data collecting system is unorganised, taxpayers have faced problems accessing tax experts, resulting in unintentional illegal tax payments.
To solve the problem, the ministry plans to set up a data centre for the Revenue, Excise and Customs Departments, and a tax clinic where data from all the departments is kept in a single IT system. An e-appointment system would let taxpayers seek advice from officials.
Pongpanu Savetdarun, deputy permanent-secretary for the ministry, said it also planned to adopt smartphone applications to allow the taxpayers among the over 10 million smartphone users in the country to access the centre.
Thailand ranked 18th out of 185 countries on ease of doing business, and 85th on starting a business, but only 96th on ease of paying tax, according to a World Bank report last June. The new centre and IT system should help improve tax payment efficiency, said Mr Pongpanu.