BANGKOK: Thailand's Supreme Court ordered jailed former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra (pic) on Monday (Nov 17) to pay back taxes over the sale of his telecoms firm, the judiciary said, with reports putting the sum due at around half a billion dollars.
In 2006, Thaksin was dogged by corruption allegations and mired in controversy over the tax-free sale of shares in his company, Shin Corp.
Later that year he was ousted as prime minister in a coup and then went into exile for more than a decade.
The 76-year-old politician, one of Thailand's richest people, is currently serving a prison sentence in Bangkok for corruption during his time in office.
On Monday, the Supreme Court overruled an appeals court decision in the tax case, "forcing Thaksin to follow the order by the Revenue Department to pay tax", court spokesman Suriyan Hongvilai told AFP.
Suriyan did not provide the specific sum to be paid nor the court's reasoning for its ruling.
Several Thai media outlets reported that the court ordered Thaksin to pay 17.6 billion baht (US$540 million) in tax liabilities and fines.
Tax officials had slapped the former prime minister with a US$500-million bill in 2017, resurrecting a dispute at the centre of the country's political rift between the populist politician and the military establishment.
The controversy centred around whether Thaksin should have paid taxes on the sale of Shin Corp to Singapore's Temasek Holdings in 2006.
The furore over the deal, which netted the Shinawatra family a US$1.9-billion windfall, was a lightning rod for opposition to his government.
Protests culminated in the coup that booted him from office and sparked years of debilitating political infighting between his supporters and opponents.
The Shinawatra clan has for two decades been the key foe of Thailand's pro-military, pro-royalty elite, who view their populist brand of politics as a threat to the traditional social order.
But the Shinawatra dynasty has faced a series of legal and political setbacks, including the court-ordered removal of Thaksin's daughter, Paetongtarn, as prime minister in August over an ethics breach. - AFP
