ICT Minister Sitthichai Pookaiyaudom yesterday said he was finalising the proposal with the Finance Ministry and that in principle the excise rate should be as low as possible, in order to avoid pressing telecom operators to pass the additional burden onto consumers.

"We need more details before the finalisation, but it'll be finished this month," he added.

Ousted prime minister Thak-sin Shinawatra's government passed the telecom excise resolution in February 2003 to

allow all private telecom opera-tors to deduct part of their concession fees to be paid as excise before sharing the re-

maining concession fees with the state concession owners.

Under the telecom excise tax, private cellular concessionaires have paid 10 per cent out of their concession fees directly to the government as excise before sharing the remainder with TOT or CAT Telecom.

Fixed telephone operators have paid 2 per cent out of their concession fees as excise to the government before giving the remainder to TOT.

This means the state telecom agencies have lost concession revenues, unlike earlier when they gained the full concession fees from their private telecom concession holders.

The ICT Ministry's proposal would once again see all private telecom operators pay the full concession fees to their state concession owners and additional excise to the government.

The excise is estimated to have cost TOT and CAT a total of Bt23.903 billion and Bt15.249 billion, respectively, from 2003-05.