FEASIBILITY ON THE ESTABLISHMENT OF SEMI-AUTONOMOUS REVENUE AGENCY IN THAILAND

Abstract

The recent government agency reponsible for state’s finance and taxtion include the Ministry of Finance which consists of three revunue mission groups administered mainly in tax enforcement. These revenue groups refer to the Customs Department, the Revenue Department, and the Excise Deparment of Thailand.

The main obstacle to developing Thailand’s tax collection management system in is that the tax collection agency belongs to a centralized bureaucratic system. This means that the tax collection agency has a tight structures and an inflexible management style so that tax administrators are unable to make their own decisions for themselves, especially in term of personnel management. The compensation structure also fails to achieve a competitive level, which makes it difficult to attract and retain qualified staff. Improper exploitation may occur in some cases due to political intervention.

Using a comparative approach, results were that many countries implemented a semi-autonomous revenue agency to solve tax efficiency management problems. Tax collection is therefore more effective, especially in reducing tax collection management costs. These finding suggest that the traditional departmental tax collection agency would become a semi-autonomous revenue agency to make the tax collection management system more effective.