Lawyers Council to defend health groups

It also advised non-profit organisations affected by the drama not to sign any legal documents or pay requested tax bills until talking with a lawyer.

Yesterday representatives from the Thai Health Movement, which comprises 20 non-profit organisations, went to the Lawyers Council’s office in Bangkok to ask for legal advice as they said the Revenue Department had ordered more than 100 non-profit organisations to pay retroactive tax of up to five years.

The overall tax requests were worth Bt800 million. It was calculated from the funds that the organisations received from the Thai Health Promotion Foundation (ThaiHealth).

Council chairman Dej-Udom Krairit said the council would investigate two aspects of the issue – the retroactive tax element and ThaiHealth’s funds being frozen.

“We are glad to help everyone with legal advice. However, we would like to ask every affected public organisation to send an official petition to the council, so we can set up working teams to look after everyone’s problems,” Dej-Udom said.

He said that in the meantime the organisations told to pay retroactive tax, register the value-added tax and affix a tax stamp should not do anything until getting legal advice.

“This is a problem resulting from a different taxation law interpretation. 

“The Revenue Department interpreted the law on the tax collector’s side, so they think the public organisations should pay income tax from ThaiHealth’s sponsorships,” he explained. “However, the taxpayers have a right to contest the Revenue Department’s interpretation by explaining that based on taxation law their operations do not fit the criteria for having to pay tax.”

Foundation for Consumers secretary general Saree Ongsomwang stated that the tax-avoidance allegation against the organisations had damaged their reputations.

Saree insisted that the income of social workers had been taxed and the money from ThaiHealth was used on social work, so there was no need to pay retroactive tax.

Saree called on the Lawyers Council to advise them whether to take legal action against ThaiHealth and the Monitoring and Auditing Committee on Fiscal Expenditure, as suspending ThaiHealth’s funding in October had resulted in many projects being halted and many organisations were forced to lay off their staff or close down.