Amendments to Law on Excise Tax submitted to Parliament of Serbia

Amendments to the Law on Excise Tax, which were adopted on January 21st, 2009, have been submitted to the Serbian Parliament for adoption by urgent procedure.

The amendments to the Law, which were prepared by the Ministry of Finance and adopted by the Government of Serbia last week, concern the method of calculation of excise taxes on cigarettes, which has been agreed with the tobacco industry.

The same solution was also proposed earlier, but the amendment that anticipated proportional duty of 38% and fixed amount of 8.92 RSD per pack was adopted instead.

According to the explanation of the amendments, they will be introduced to protect the standard of citizens with lower incomes because the cutting of the proposed proportional duty would result in smaller increase in prices of cheaper cigarettes.

According to the Ministry of Finance, the adopted solution would create losses in the budget of Serbia, especially on long-term basis, and that is why its urgent replacement has been proposed.