Briefs

The government collected Bt1.57 trillion in tax revenue in the first eight months of fiscal year 2016 (October 2015 to May 2016), Bt61.09 billion or 4.1 per cent over the target, and 13.4 per cent more than the total for the same period of fiscal year 2015.
The increase was attributed to the Bt48.24 billion from the auctions of telecom licences to the 900- and 1,800-megahertz spectra, above-target contributions from state enterprises, and higher-than-expected revenue from personal income tax, beer tax and vehicle excise, according to Krisada Chinavicharana, director-general of the Fiscal Policy Office.
The total state-enterprise contribution was 14.4 per cent, or Bt12.20 billion, over target. Meanwhile revenue from personal income tax was Bt7.35 billion (3.4 per cent) above target, from beer tax Bt6.95 billion (12.6 per cent) over, and from vehicle excise tax Bt4.44 billion (7.1 per cent) over target.
Collection of value-added tax (VAT) in the eight-month period was 0.4 per cent higher than in the same period of fiscal 2015, attributed to higher domestic consumption after implementation of the government’s economic stimulus measures and accelerated expenditures of state agencies, Krisada said.

CTH ASKED TO POSTPONE CLOSURE
The National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission’s consumer rights subcommittee has asked representatives of CTH Cable TV to ask their management if the company could postpone the shutdown of its pay-TV service by one to three months from the originally planned August 1.
NBTC member Supinya Klangnarong, who chairs the subcommittee, yesterday met with the CTH representatives on the company’s plan to discontinue pay-TV programming via Thaicom’s Ku-band satellite-TV footprint. She said the representatives failed to provide complete information to the subcommittee on the matter.
She added that it was found that CTH had not yet requested permission from the NBTC broadcasting committee to discontinue the service or submitted a written remedy plan to protect its customers. However, the company has already informed people about the plan to discontinue the service.
The subcommittee has asked the NBTC legal team to seek legal avenues to make the company proceed according to the rules. The CTH representatives informed the subcommittee that its customers using Ku-band boxes could still view free digital terrestrial TV channels after August 1.

NINE FINED FOR STOCK OFFENCE
Nine people have been fined a total of Bt447.26 million by the Securities and Exchange Commission for manipulation of Union Mosaic Industry (UMI) shares.
The SEC said Chalam Semsarit, who was then an executive of Country Group Securities and a securities investment adviser, and other eight people manipulated the UMI share price and volume through several trading accounts consistently from January 9 to February 28 this year. Chalam was fined Bt72.19 million. UMI’s share price soared from Bt7.75 on January 8 to close at Bt38.75 on February 28, with daily trading volume surging from 3 million shares to 30 million.