The Customs Department has lowered import tariffs on 524 information technology (IT) products with the aim of sharpening the industry's competitive edge.
The move, which took effect on July 1, is in compliance with the Information Technology Agreement (ITA) and will cut costs for IT goods ranging from GPS devices to touch screens to next-generation semiconductors, said director-general Kulit Sombatsiri.
The import tariff reduction on IT products will cost the department 4.8 billion baht a year in lost revenue.
The department's revenue target is set at 114 billion baht for the fiscal year ending Sept 30. Mr Kulit said great strides have been made to achieve the target by stemming tax avoidance and improving the efficiency of collection after a recent batch of tariff reductions.
The department in May cut tariffs on 1,100 imported products, estimating 3.8 billion baht a year in forgone revenue.
It has addressed tax evasion by adopting a mobile application that allows customs officials to check tariffs, product prices and product origins to solve the problem of declaring imported products prices lower than they should be.
The app, as a pilot project, contains information concerning price declarations for 144 product items such as clothes, agricultural products, motorcycles, automobiles and wines.
To reduce the problem of shipping deceptions, the department has threatened to put those shipping firms on a blacklist if it detects that they pass fines to their customers that exceed what they paid, and the department will require its officials to directly make the fines known to those who buy the imported products.
There are around 12,000 shipping companies, of which 15-20% have transparency problems.
The department is launching a one-stop service to link information with other state agencies tasked with issuing licences for importing products such as the Department of Livestock Development and the Department of Disease Control to facilitate trade.