Under his watchful eye

Reungkrai, who previously worked as an adviser to auditor-general Jaruwan Maintaka, explained: "As a former auditor responsible for examining the books of various state enterprises, I'm quite familiar with what I'm doing.

"Many people find it difficult to understand tax and legal issues as they're not trained in those areas. Therefore, I like to help by raising issues that protect public interests."

In 2006, Reungkrai took the Revenue Department to court over a controversial tax case, which would later have serious implications on the sale of 329 million Shin Corp shares by a shell company, called Ample Rich, to two Shinawatra siblings.

"In 2003, I purchased 5,000 shares of BECL, a toll-way company, from my father outside the stock exchange. I was taxed for this transaction. Later I found that Panthongtae and Pinthongta [Shinawatra] did not have to pay any taxes when they bought the Shin Corp shares in a similar manner.

"After I raised the issue, the Revenue Department sent me a Bt20,000 cheque to refund the tax I had previously paid. I thought that was wrong, so I took the agency to court and recently won the case. It's simply a practice of double standards," he said.

As a result of Reungkrai's victory, the Revenue Department has had to change its position and plans to charge the two Shinawatra siblings a total of Bt12 billion in outstanding taxes.

More recently, Reungkrai, who holds a master's degree in accounting from Thammasat University, also played a key role in taking then-prime minister Samak Sundaravej to the Constitution Court.

On September 9, the court ruled that Samak had violated the law by hosting a cooking show on television while holding public office, and this resulted in his dismissal.

"The law clearly states that he's not supposed to take up a position that benefits the private sector while still in office," he said.

Reungkrai also took on Samak's successor Somchai Wongsawat for allegedly breaking the law by holding shares of CS Loxinfo - an Internet company that holds a concession granted by the government.

"Again, the law stipulates that, as a prime minister, he is not supposed to hold shares in companies that hold government concessions," he said, adding that Somchai could have transferred his shareholdings to a trust prior to taking office.

However, this case was put on the back burner after the Constitution Court disbanded the ruling People Power Party (PPP) on grounds of election fraud, and Somchai was automatically pushed out of office.

In the wake of the December 2 dissolution, Reungkrai also submitted a complaint to the Election Commission questioning if party-list MPs of disbanded parties could lawfully move to another political party.

This would have implications on the status of more than 30 party-list MPs belonging to the now-defunct PPP, including the status of current Parliament President Chai Chidchob.

"I raised this issue because we were supposed to hold a joint House-Senate session on matters such as rectifying the Asean Charter between December 8 and 9, so it was important that the status of all party-list MPs be clarified," he said.