Thaksin appears in court to challenge asset seizure

Ex-PM says he’s being pursued twice for the same debt

Former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra told a court on Wednesday that the seizure and freezing of his assets to recover a 17.6-billion-baht tax debt were unlawful, arguing that poor coordination between the Revenue Department and the Ministry of Finance had led to him being pursued twice for the same debt.

Thaksin made the claim while testifying in a Central Tax Court hearing on his request for a temporary injunction to stop the asset seizure to recover tax debt stemming from the 2006 sale of shares in Shin Corp, the telecoms company he founded.

The Supreme Court’s Tax Division in November last year upheld the tax claim by the department against the former prime minister.

Thaksin testified that the department had seized or frozen his assets, including five cars. Two of those cars, he said, were specially built with bulletproof windows and were necessary for his personal security because he had faced assassination attempts while serving as prime minister.

Thaksin, 77, argued that taking the vehicles away could put his life at risk, while replacing them would take considerable time because such vehicles have to be specially ordered and manufactured.

“I am not sure if someone intends to harm me,” Thaksin said, adding that if his cars were taken, “what if my life is in danger? Who will take responsibility?”

He also said he no longer had sufficient income to provide cash as security to delay payment of the tax.

Duplicate enforcement

Thaksin said the tax dispute resulted from the 2006 coup, which prevented him from returning to Thailand to defend himself. While saying he accepted the Supreme Court’s ruling on the tax liability, he argued the Revenue Department’s subsequent enforcement measures were unlawful.

The former premier’s lawyers have argued that the department’s actions represent duplicate enforcement because the underlying income was already part of the 46.4 billion baht confiscated from him under a 2010 Supreme Court ruling.

He compared the dispute to a family, with the Finance Ministry the “father” and the Revenue Department the “son”, saying he had paid the father but their failure to communicate led the son to demand payment again.

The tax court is due to deliver its ruling on November 16.

Share sale uproar

The sale of Shin Corp shares to Temasek Holdings of Singapore in 2006, which netted the Shinawatra family a $1.9-billion windfall, sparked protests and became a lightning rod for opposition to Thaksin’s government.

He was ousted in a coup later that year and went into exile for more than a decade, during which time he was convicted of corruption.

When he returned to Thailand in 2023, Thaksin was arrested and convicted of abuse of power while in office from 2001-06, but was transferred to a hospital within hours of entering prison, staying in a VIP room for the next six months.

He finally saw the inside of a cell last year after a court ruled the hospital stay did not constitute enforcement of his earlier sentence. He served eight months before his release in May.