Ten family members arrested on tax fraud charges

Police from the Cybercrime Investigation Bureau (CIB) and Revenue Department officials have taken 10 members of a family and others into custody, for allegedly setting up skeleton import-export companies, to claim VAT refunds from the Revenue Department for goods exported to Myanmar at inflated prices.

A CIB officer claimed that the tax fraud gang had cheated the Revenue Department out of VAT refunds, to the tune of about a billion baht, for goods exported to Myanmar, which were heavily inflated, in terms of both price and amount.

More than 100,000 pages of business transaction documents and several computers were seized during the coordinated raids on 14 locations in Bangkok, Tak and Chiang Mai.

Pol Maj-Gen Taspoom Charupat, a CIB commander, said that the tax fraud gang had set up about 20 businesses in Bangkok, Chiang Mai and Tak, which housed the headquarters of the operation.

He said that the 20 businesses engaged in fake trading between themselves and each time the goods were reported to have been traded to another entity, the prices were inflated and fake receipts were issued, increasing the amount of VAT accordingly.

Salakchit Pongsirichan, an advisor on tax collection strategy, said that the export of consumer products to Myanmar is exempted from customs duties, and the exporters are entitled to VAT refunds.

According to the Revenue Department, the group had claimed more than 150 million baht in VAT refunds in 2021-22 alone.

All ten family suspects were charged with tax evasion and tax fraud.