Supreme Court to consider alleged excise tax corruption against Thaksin

The first hearing will be on October 15.

The suit alleged that Thaksin's alleged corruption caused damaged of Bt66 billion to the country.

Public prosecutors' investigation based on a Cabinet resolution in 2003 which approved the charging of excise on telecom businesses. The decision by Thaksin government is alleged to have caused financial damage to TOT and CAT Telecom.

The Cabinet resolution allowed for an executive decree to be issued to force telecom businesses to pay excise. It also let private companies contracted to the two state agencies deduct the excise from revenuesharing paid under their concessions.

Therefore private telecom operators paid the same amount to the state agencies.

But the state agencies received less revenue because part of their revenuesharing was now paid as excise.