Thaksin appears in court to challenge asset seizure

Key facts

• 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
• 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
• 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.
• Thaksin said the tax dispute resulted from the 2006 coup, which prevented him from returning to Thailand to defend himself
• 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.
• 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.