“Economic Party ”opposes VAT hike to 10%, Urges crackdown on corruption-Taxing migrant workers instead

Today (April 22, 2026) at 11:20 a.m., the Parliament building Mr. Chris Potranandana, Chairman of the Economic Party and a list-MP gave a press conference to clarify the party's stance against raising the Value Added Tax (VAT) from 7% to 10%. He added that following bad exposure over the VAT increase proposal in the Senate, the Senate committee retracted the document, claiming it was only a study report. He confirmed that these assertions were untrue. However, the Economic Party investigated and discovered a document establishing a medium term budget plan (dated November 20, 2025) from the Secretary-General of the Cabinet, implying that the subject at hand is valid.

"If the VAT is raised, a 100-baht convenience shop item will cost Thais an extra 103 baht. While this may appear minor, it represents a huge rise in the cost of living for all Thai citizens. As a result, all services would increase in price by 3%. In today's economic context, a VAT hike is expected to cause a 1% economic decline. This would affect the lives of all Thai citizens, resulting in lower consumption and production." "Fewer jobs, more unemployment, and sometimes we can't even collect taxes," Chris stated

He suggested that the government tax foreign workers and eliminate tax breaks starting with the first baht. Currently, there are around 4 million foreign workers in the formal sector, and when combined with undocumented foreign workers, the number is expected to exceed 10 million. The majority of these foreign workers never pay taxes in Thailand, although they consume public facilities and services just like Thai citizens. Collecting income tax from them would yield about 30 billion baht per year.

The Economic Party consequently encourages the government to collect taxes from all foreign workers in order to ensure fairness for all Thai nationals and raise government revenue. Furthermore, corruption in Thailand totals more than 500 billion baht every year, and the Economic Party opposes it.

As such, if the government could reduce corruption by half, it could generate 250 billion baht, when combined with other collected income, would be a substantial contribution. The 30 billion baht from foreign nationals will improve Thailand's financial situation without increasing taxes on Thai citizens.

Photo : Annie