A senior official from the Federation of Thai Industries (FTI) is reporting that as many as 10,000 luxury cars are imported to Thailand illegally each year.
Suparat Sirisuwannangkura, chairman of the FTI’s Automotive Industry Club, said that between smuggling and tax avoidance scams, each year 5,000 to 10,000 luxury cars are brought into Thailand without payment of the necessary taxes. Suparat estimated that this cost the Thai government billions of baht annually.
The numbers Suparat cited arose from a 2011 report that estimated 5,000 luxury cars had been illegally imported to Thailand that year. The report estimated that this trend had resulted in lost tax revenues of close to THB44.4 billion.
Rising numbers of luxury car owners led Suparat to speculate that the number of cars currently being smuggled into Thailand each year numbers in the range of 10,000, rather than the previously estimated 5,000. If correct, this would mean that the government has lost out on roughly THB100 billion in tax revenue during the past two years.
The Nation reports that the Department of Special Investigations (DSI) is currently in the process of investigating 548 luxury cars that it has impounded on suspicions of tax fraud.
