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Where there is no law, but every man does what is right in his own eyes, there is the least of real liberty
Henry M. Robert

Pustovoitenko Government Again Steps on own Rake With Alcohol

13 November, 2012 - 00:00

By Vitaly KNIAZHANSKY, The Day
The government has decided again to raise excise duties on alcohol. The
Cabinet of Ministers instruction to the relevant agencies (Economy Ministry,
Finance Ministry, and State Committee on Special Monopolies) to raise the
excise duty on domestically-produced spirits and hard liquor from the current
3 to 7 euros per liter was signed as long ago as June 4, but it became
public knowledge only in recent days.

Ukrayinski Novyny quotes Deputy Minister for the Agro-Industrial Complex
Leonid Svatkov as saying the decision was ineffective.

Executive director of the Pride of Ukraine National League of Food Producers
Hennady Kuznetsov told The Day without any pride for his government
that "any increase in excise duties brings down sales and brings up imports
of raw materials, as it was last August, when very large consignments of
alcohol were imported into this country and all our factories stood idle."
Raising excise duties is, according to Mr. Kuznetsov, a link in the chain
of a policy under which minimal prices for alcohol were recently set -
because importers only declare minimal prices, which is reflected on customs
duty rates, etc.

Director of the Alko Trading House Yuri Vasyliev said pithily that the
future raising of alcohol excise taxes is an attempt to come unstuck again
and expressed a great doubt that the law will be passed by parliament:
it would immediately push up prices; the provincial population, which does
not buy the state-produced liquor even now, will revert, following the
excise attack, to making moonshine, which remains a profitable business
even with the current price of sugar. And budget revenues will drop sharply.
This is not a prediction but a real experience from the recent past," said
Mr. Vasyliev.

 

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