Section 154: Dishonest tax or fee collection by an official
Statutory text (Thai original)
ผู้ใดเป็นเจ้าพนักงาน มีหน้าที่หรือแสดงว่าตนมีหน้าที่เรียกเก็บหรือตรวจสอบภาษีอากร ค่าธรรมเนียม หรือเงินอื่นใด โดยทุจริตเรียกเก็บหรือละเว้นไม่เรียกเก็บภาษีอากร ค่าธรรมเนียมหรือเงินนั้น หรือกระทำการหรือไม่กระทำการอย่างใด เพื่อให้ผู้มีหน้าที่เสียภาษีอากรหรือค่าธรรมเนียมนั้นมิต้องเสีย หรือเสียน้อยไปกว่าที่จะต้องเสีย ต้องระวางโทษจำคุกตั้งแต่ห้าปีถึงยี่สิบปี หรือจำคุกตลอดชีวิต และปรับตั้งแต่หนึ่งแสนบาทถึงสี่แสนบาท หมายเหตุ: [อัตราโทษ แก้ไขเพิ่มเติมโดยมาตรา ๗ แห่งพระราชบัญญัติแก้ไขเพิ่มเติมประมวลกฎหมายอาญา (ฉบับที่ ๒๖) พ.ศ. ๒๕๖๐]
English translation
Whoever, being an official having, or holding himself out as having, the duty to levy or examine taxes, fees or any other money, dishonestly levies or refrains from levying such tax, fee or money, or does or omits to do any act so that a person liable to pay the tax or fee is relieved from paying it or pays less than what is due, shall be punished with imprisonment from five to twenty years or imprisonment for life, and a fine from one hundred thousand to four hundred thousand baht.
This English translation is provided for reference only and has not yet been firm-verified. Always rely on the Thai original.
Firm annotation
Section 154 is the revenue-corruption offence, aimed at officials handling taxes, fees or other public money. Its elements are (1) being an official who has, or holds himself out as having, the duty to levy or examine tax, fees or money, and (2) dishonestly, either (a) levying or not levying it, or (b) doing or omitting an act so that a liable person pays nothing or less than due. The provision reaches both over-collection for personal gain and dishonest under-collection or waiver that deprives the State of revenue. It carries the heavy five-to-twenty-year or life range typical of the property-based corruption offences in this Chapter, and is distinct from the valuation offence in Section 155 and the account-audit offence in Section 156, which target narrower stages of the same revenue process.
Why this matters in practice
This is a serious offence, five years to life, non-compoundable and handled through the anti-corruption process. Because it carries a life-imprisonment ceiling, the applicable limitation period is the longest tier, so old revenue matters can still be pursued. A recurring issue in the case law is that where several offences are charged on the same facts, limitation must be assessed offence by offence, not by the most serious count, so a lighter linked count such as Section 157 may lapse while this heavier count remains live. Officials in revenue roles and taxpayers approached to underpay both face exposure.
Cited in 10 Supreme Court decisions (1962 to 2018)
Selected citing decisions
- Decision 10171-10182/2553 (2010)
- Decision 288/2507 (1964)
- Decision 3410/2525 (1982)
- Decision 2458-2459/2561 (2018)
- Decision 1674/2520 (1977)
- Decision 309/2558 (2015)
- Decision 353/2556 (2013)
- Decision 1146/2537 (1994)
This list is selected automatically, weighted towards judgments that turn on this section rather than ones that merely recite it when passing sentence. It has not yet been reviewed by the firm.
Most often cited alongside
- Section 157 9
- Section 149 5
- Section 147 4
- Section 83 3
- Section 91 3
Sections that appear in the same judgments as this one most often. The figure is the number of decisions.
Counted across the firm's corpus of 83,652 Supreme Court decisions, 1921 to 2026. The count is complete; the stated year range trims rare outliers so it describes where the citations actually sit. These figures are computed by us and are not official court statistics. How we count these, and what we measured
Frequently asked questions
Does Section 154 cover under-collecting tax as well as over-collecting?
Yes. It reaches dishonest over-collection for gain and dishonest waiver or under-collection that lets a taxpayer pay nothing or less than due.
If linked counts are time-barred, is Section 154 also barred?
Not necessarily. Limitation is assessed for each offence separately, so a lighter linked count may lapse while this heavier count remains live.
Related guides on ThaiLawOnline
Cite this section
-
Plain citation
Penal Code, s. 154 (Thailand) -
Academic citation
Penal Code (Thailand), s. 154. ThaiLawOnline, https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-penal-code/section-154/ (accessed 17 August 2026). -
Thai citation
ป.อ. มาตรา 154 -
Permalink
https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-penal-code/section-154/ -
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<blockquote cite="https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-penal-code/section-154/"><p>Whoever, being an official having, or holding himself out as having, the duty to levy or examine taxes, fees or any other money, dishonestly levies or refrains from levying such tax, fee or money, or does or omits to do any act so that a…</p><footer>Penal Code, s. 154 (Thailand) — <a href="https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-penal-code/section-154/">ThaiLawOnline</a></footer></blockquote>
The Thai text is authoritative. The English is an unofficial translation by ThaiLawOnline, free to reuse with attribution.