THE much-awaited ‘shop to help the country’ campaign was approved by the Cabinet today to spur consumer spending during the last few days of this year, Kobsak Phutrakul, Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister’s Office was quoted as saying by Thai News Agency.
It is hoped that the shopping tax break will boost expenditure on various products, gifts and general necessities but alcohol, tobacco, beer, wine, petrol and cars are not covered. Also not covered are tours, hotels and guides which have been boosted by another measure approved last week.
This campaign is effective during December 14-31, an increase from just seven days last year, with Thais able to use VAT receipts to deduct personal income tax up to 15,000 baht a person when their submit their annual tax papers for 2016 during January to March 2017.
Although it is expected that the government will lose around 3.2 billion baht but it is also likely that this measure will lead to 20 billion baht cash circulation generated from a target that 2 million people will likely shop in keeping with this government policy. This will also help increase GDP by 0.2%.
A similar campaign in 2015 drew one million shoppers and while the government lost 1.2 billion baht, total sales reached 10 billion baht.
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Top: Shoppers at the popular Terminal 21 Mall. Photo: Aapo Haapanen (CC-BY-2.0)
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