The ruling worth more than half a billion USD immediately reheated the map of power in Thailand, where the Shinawatra family has long faced fiercely with the military and royal family.
On November 17, the Thai Supreme Court suddenly issued a ruling demanding that former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra pay a huge amount of tax related to the sale of Shin Corp telecommunications group nearly 20 years ago.
Although not announcing the official figures, many Thai news agencies simultaneously raised the amount Mr. Thaksin had to pay to 17.6 billion baht, equivalent to 540 million USD - a heavy blow to the most powerful family in the country.
This decision overturned the previous appellate court's ruling on not collecting taxes from Mr. Thaksin. At the same time, Thaksin was forced to comply with the tax payment requirements issued by the Tax Department, said spokesperson Suriyan Hongvilai.
Although the details of the legal arguments were not published, the restoration of the huge tax fine was seen as the return of one of the most deeply divided political disputes in Thailand for two decades.
The tax collection controversy over Mr. Thaksin dates back to 2006, when he was accused of tax evasion in a deal to sell Shin Corp shares to Singapore's Temasek Holdings fund.
The deal brought the Shinawatra family a huge profit of $1.9 billion, but also fueled a wave of fierce protests, becoming the focus of the anti-government wave at the time.
Just a few months later, a series of protests led to a military coup that overthrew him as prime minister. From there, Mr. Thaksin entered a series of exiled days lasting more than a decade, until he returned to Thailand in 2023 in the context of the Shinawatra family still being the focus of confrontation between the druggolds and the military-king elite.
Currently 76, one of Thailand's richest billionaires, Thaksin is serving a prison sentence in Bangkok for corruption allegations in his previous term. The Supreme Court's restoration of tax collection since 2017 - once considered the legal spearhead of the anti-Taksin faction - is seen as a new escalation in the prolonged confrontation between the two largest power groups in Thailand.
Not only stopping at taxes, the Shinawatra family has recently encountered consecutive incidents. In August, his daughter, Paetongtarn Shinawatra, was sentenced by the court to be forced off the prime minister's chair for violating moral standards - another heavy blow to the political influence of the family.
