The Revenue Department wants 40 companies that won Board of Investment (BoI) tax privileges to pay an additional 2-3 billion baht in corporate income tax.
About 800 companies are enjoying BoI tax incentives but 40 made wrong calculations for corporate tax payments because their accounting firms gave them wrong advice, director-general Prasong Poontaneat said without revealing the companies' names.
If these companies have already paid the correct tax, the department will stop issuing notices to them, he said.
To alleviate the financial burden from the tax bills, the department will allow them to pay by Aug 1 without fines.
Tax disputes between the department and the 40 companies followed different tax calculation methods for BoI-promoted projects, Mr Prasong said.
The companies computed their taxable income separately for each BoI project, while the Revenue Code requires companies to combine profits and losses from all BoI-promoted projects with non-BoI projects in tax calculation.
Mr Prasong said the Revenue Department followed the Supreme Court's ruling requiring companies to combine profits and losses from all BoI-promoted projects.
The department's policy did not conflict with the provisions of the BoI Act as the latter is related to tax exemptions while the former is associated with tax payment, he said.
The Supreme Court ruled in favour of the Revenue Department on a landmark tax dispute with NMB-Minebea Thai Ltd dating back to 2008 and involving 502 million baht in taxes. It said the local subsidiary of the Japanese company must net its losses and profits generated from all BoI projects for corporate income tax calculation.
Mr Prasong said he had already explained the issue to Federation of Thai Industries chairman Supant Mongkolsuthree, whose organisation will clarify the situation to operators.
In another development, the Finance Ministry and the Science and Technology Ministry have agreed to shorten the period for granting tax incentives to research projects.
They will allow private companies that are registered with the National Science and Technology Development Agency and have experience in research and technology to make self-declaration for projects with investment of no more than 3 million baht, Science and Technology Minister Pichet Durongkaveroj said.
The process will shorten the period for tax incentive approval by 3-4 months, Mr Pichet said.