Latest Development

Sept 13: Deputy Finance Minister Sommai Phasee and former foreign minister Surakiart Sathirathai were both summoned to testify before the AEC over alleged corruption in telecommunications excise tax policy, a source said.
Sommai was deputy permanent secretary at the Finance Ministry when the policy was being drafted.
Surakiart was also questioned about how the Thaksin government had ratified the free-trade agreement with Australia in the telecoms field.

May 8: The AEC resolved to charge and investigate Thaksin for his government's decision on the telecom excise tax, which the panel viewed as beneficial to a particular mobile-phone operator and unfair to consumers.

Background: The team is investigating a 2003 Cabinet resolution approving the charging of excise on telecom businesses, which is said to have caused financial damage to TOT and CAT Telecom. Critics say the policy deprived the two state telecom agencies of huge revenues and weakened their competitiveness.

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.
The team found the resolution contravened two executive decrees amending the Excise Act, the 1997 Constitution and a Ministry of Finance notification.