Smoking since 2006 will be a luxury

The Ministry of Finance is going to increase budget revenues at the expense of smokers. Deputy Minister Sergei Shatalov said that since 2006, fiscal authorities have been ready to levy excise taxes on tobacco products not from the vacation price, but with retail. If this happens, a pack of cigarettes will become a luxury and automatically rise in price by 30-40%.

The Ministry of Finance does not hide that these plans are dictated by a lack of money. "New Izvestia" , quoting an unnamed representative of the financial department, report that now tobacco companies underestimate wholesale prices for their products, since excise taxes are being taken from them. So the new order will allow the Ministry of Finance to solve two budget problems at once: underestimating the cost of cigarettes and leaving manufacturers of taxes from taxes.

According to Sergei Shatalov, a working group will be created in October-November, which will be engaged in the elaboration of parts. The most difficult problem is to determine the very retail price of cigarettes with which the excise tax will be charged. After all, a pack of cigarettes from Moscow to Vladivostok is everywhere differently. “Perhaps this will be the declared prices of the manufacturer, perhaps the recommended prices,” says Shatalov.

The newspaper claims that now almost all large manufacturers underestimate the vacation price, reselling their products to controlled structures. In this case, the minimization of excise payments is not punished by law. If the excise taxes are levied from retail, then the cost of cigarettes can jump by 30-40% - taking into account the retail price and annual excise indexation, which is usually set twice as high as inflation.

According to the Accounts Chamber, the volume of excise tax revenues for tobacco products to the federal budget in 2003 amounted to only 16 billion rubles, not 20 billion, as planned. In addition, the budget provides for an increase in the receipt of funds from this excise tax by 70%, and real growth amounted to 55.8%. In other words, the effect of increasing the rate is the exact opposite: the larger it is, the less revenues to the budget.