BANGKOK (NNT) - Heightened tobacco prices in the Kingdom have led many smokers into duty-evading and buying illegally smuggled supplies. In response, the Excise Department has drafted new measures to combat the availabiity of untaxed cigarettes.

 

Director of the Tax Planning Office Kriangkrai Pattanaporn, as deputy spokesperson of the Excise Department, stated the organization takes the illegal smuggling of tobacco products seriously and has set up an online suppression center to respond to offenders on the internet and social media. It has also integrated work with the Revenue Department, police and the military to apprehend smugglers. The office maintains a yearly plan preventing and suppressing illegal cigarettes and engages in ad hoc plans to combat offenders. Local excise offices and branches are also fully supported in the effort.

 

In Fiscal 2021, the Excise Department initiated 6,252 illegal tobacco cases, seized over 1.44 million packs of illegally imported cigarettes and lodged 1.248 billion baht in fines. Most arrests were made along the Thai-Malaysian border. It is committed to continuing its stringent effort.

 

-- © Copyright NNT 2021-09-09

 

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Thailand is falling into the same trap as governments elsewhere.

 

Frequent steep excise tobacco tax hikes are making cigarettes increasingly unaffordable for smokers, many of whom naturally will resort to illicit products -- particularly when they are so easily available as here and sold at practically every street corner.

 

We have seen it in Australia, in the UK, Singapore, Malaysia, Germany, and pretty much everywhere else where cigarettes have become out of the financial reach of a large proportion of consumers. Rather than giving up their habit, the majority of these consumers simply will look for other ways to get their tobacco.

 

Just as much as there always will be people who drink, there always will be people who smoke. But when will that fact finally sink in with regulators?

 

But then again, fleecing consumers under the pretext that cigarettes are only getting so expensive because the government is oh so concerned about smokers' health is rather hypocritical, because the true reason is to raise more revenue for the state apparatus, of course.

 

It's the same with alcohol tax. Or for that matter the oddly named "value-added" tax. What "value" is possibly "added" to a product when it is being artificially made more more expensive? None. "Cost-added tax" would perhaps be a more accurate moniker.    

Yes - I am seriously taking your cigarettes off you.......unless you pay the extra "tax"