State Audit Office launches first-ever audit of Thai PBS after three straight years of losses

Thai PBS is facing a major storm over its use of so-called “sin tax” funds worth up to THB2 billion a year. The State Audit Office (SAO) has decided to set up an audit team after receiving complaints alleging a lack of transparency in budget management, alongside growing questions over whether the tax money is being spent value-for-money.

In a media landscape being heavily disrupted, the Thai Public Broadcasting Service (Thai PBS) is funded by an earmarked levy from excise taxes on alcohol and tobacco—often referred to as a “sin tax”—of no more than THB2,000 million per year.

However, a review of the past three years of financial statements—2022-2024—which were reported in detail to the House of Representatives and the Senate, points to budget management that includes rising expenditure items.

The notes to the financial statements, under “General information”, for the year ended December 31, 2024, state that Thai PBS is a juristic person acting as a public media organisation for radio broadcasting and television. It is a state agency that is neither a government department nor a state enterprise under the law on budgetary procedures. It operates under its own capital, assets and income. Thai PBS was established on January 15, 2008, under the Thai Public Broadcasting Service Act, B.E. 2551 (2008), as Thailand’s first non-profit public media organisation.

Section 12 of the Thai Public Broadcasting Service Act, B.E. 2551 (2008), grants the organisation the authority to collect a maintenance levy from taxpayers under alcohol and tobacco laws at a rate of 1.5% of the excise tax collected on alcohol and tobacco, and to allocate it as the organisation’s income.

The maximum income is capped at no more than THB2,000 million per fiscal year. The Comptroller General’s Department is responsible for remitting the levy to Thai PBS in line with the Ministry of Finance regulation on collection, remittance, suspension, exemption, reduction and refunds of the organisation’s maintenance levy on alcohol and tobacco, B.E. 2557 (2014), announced on November 13, 2014.

The Comptroller General’s Department began implementing the regulation on October 1, 2015.

Three years “in the red”

A review of annual performance reports submitted to parliament over the latest three years shows:

• 2022: total income THB2,663.4 million, expenditure THB2,915.2 million, deficit -THB251.8 million
• 2023: income fell to THB2,552.3 million, expenditure THB2,827.4 million, deficit widened to -THB275.6 million
• 2024: expenditure was cut to THB2,771.9 million with income THB2,594.8 million, but the deficit remained -THB177.9 million

These figures directly affected total assets, which fell sharply from THB7,371.6 million in 2022 to THB6,909.1 million in 2024.

The most closely watched development came in mid-February 2026, when Auditor General Monthien Charoenpol ordered the appointment of a 16-member task force—drawing specialists from three core areas: finance, investigation, and value-for-money assessment—to audit Thai PBS for the first time in the history of Thailand’s public media sector.

The key aim is to examine patterns of state-fund spending that may indicate poor value for money and could even amount to corruption.

The issues surrounding Thai PBS are not an isolated incident, but have unfolded in sequence as follows:

• December 2025: Employees filed complaints alleging that senior managers—at the level of News Bureau Director and Special Experts—received a fixed monthly transport allowance (THB17,000-30,000) while also using official pool vehicles for pick-up and drop-off. This raised questions over whether the practice could constitute duplicate benefits.
• January 2026: The SAO accepted the complaint and began forming an investigation team to review records going back five years. Meanwhile, the Thai PBS director acknowledged that there had previously been no regulations governing the use of official vehicles since the organisation was established in 2008.
• February 18, 2026: The first six-member SAO task force, led by an assistant auditor general, conducted an on-site inspection, focusing on procurement by the Content Creation Bureau.
• February 22, 2026: The Thai PBS director issued a letter certifying that the former News Bureau Director was not at fault in the official-vehicle case, citing an internal review that found no breach of regulations.
• At present: The SAO is expanding its probe to potential “contract splitting” and the use of “specific selection” (direct award) methods to hire programme producers in a way that may indicate an intent to avoid competitive bidding.

Programme production contracts: a loophole in “special methods” with inflated prices?

What the SAO is watching particularly closely is the finding that a single private company won direct-award contracts to produce news programmes for three consecutive years (2023-2025), with a combined value of more than THB36 million.

This comes despite questions over why Thai PBS would outsource at such significant cost when it already has personnel and equipment in place.

There have also been numerous smaller procurement items—such as hiring consultants or subtitle translators—that are often awarded through the specific-selection method, typically justified as “urgent necessity”.

The “sin tax” funding pool: 16 years of budgets under public scrutiny

Thai PBS is an organisation funded by a maintenance levy on alcohol and tobacco taxes—commonly referred to simply as the “sin tax”—at a rate of 1.5%.

• Main revenue source: The law caps annual revenue at no more than THB2 billion, but after 2014, total income rose to around THB2.2-2.5 billion per year due to revenue from providing a digital TV multiplex (MUX) service.
• Start-up capital: In 2008, Thai PBS received initial capital from assets transferred from the Prime Minister’s Office worth more than THB1.107 billion, and the government approved an additional THB340 million.
• Current position: From 2020 onwards, Thai PBS began recording expenditure exceeding income, with programme production costs reaching more than THB1 billion per year, plus personnel expenses of about THB600-700 million per year.

The SAO’s findings, expected within 60 days, will be a major test of whether Thai PBS remains a “pillar for society” or has become merely a “twilight zone” of wasteful public spending. The fact that management moved to defend one another before an independent audit is concluded has only deepened public suspicion:

Are the tax revenues flowing into the station truly being used with the “value for money, efficiency, and effectiveness” required by law?