Cigarette, alcohol, massage parlor tax to rise in 6 months
WHILE the excise tax amendments that have been published in the Royal Gazette set new ceilings for various products such 5 baht a cigarette and 1,000 baht a massage parlor service, the Excise Department says the real hikes won’t impact consumers and will not be effective for another 180 days, Thai News Agency said today (March 22).
Excise Department head Somchai Poonswasdi said today that excise tax amendments were published in the Royal Gazette on March 20, 2017 but will be effective after 180 days of the announcement or in the middle of September.
During this period 80 organic laws will be introduced for consistency with the new amendments.
This particularly involves setting the tax for various products because the amendments only set the ceilings with the real tax to match current situation and will not impact consumers in keeping with Cabinet resolution.
That the ceilings are high in the amendments is because the authorities are looking 20 years ahead and for this reason the public is urged not to panic and shopkeepers warned not the hoard goods.
Sources added that the important point of the new excise tax amendments is that it sets new excise tax ceilings worked out on retail price base of certain merchandise. For example excise tax for oil and oil products will be 50% of the value or 20 baht a liter; fermented beverages 30% of the value or 3,000 baht a liter of pure alcohol; distilled spirits 30% of the value or 1,000 baht per one liter of pure alcohol; cigarettes 5 baht each and massage parlor 1,000 baht a service.
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Top: A pack of cigarettes on a worktable. Photo: Falko (CC-BY-SA-2.0)
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