Some 24,000 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have already signed up to sort out their financial accounts from 2016-17, meeting standards to avoid late payment penalties and criminal liability, says the chief of the Revenue Department.
Participating in the scheme can help operators use the amended financial statements to seek loans from financial institutions, said Ekniti Nitithanprapas, director-general of the department.
The department initiated the single account scheme in 2016, but many SMEs kept more than one account to understate their tax bills, he said. The scheme runs until the end of June.
The department found that a portion of the 460,000 SME operators that registered for the scheme in 2016 to get backdated tax payment exemption still understated their tax payments. This is the last chance for them to comply.
SME participants are required to pay a delinquency tax for the period from 2016 until now in return for waivers of fines and criminal liability.
To qualify for the scheme, SMEs must have annual sales of up to 500 million baht and must have never faced criminal charges for using or issuing fake tax invoices before March 25, 2019.
They are also required to submit tax return filings through the electronic filing system for at least one year staring from July 1, 2019 to June, 2020.
Chakkrit Parapuntakul, president of the Federation of Accounting Professions, said the amended law to allow SMEs to comply with the accounting standards should raise auditor's confidence that the rejigged accounts do not breach the laws.