Tue, Feb 07 2012

Excise duty on hard liquor and beer to remain the same

Thu, Nov 26 2009 13:18 CET 2733 Views 3 Comments
Excise duty on hard liquor and beer to remain the same

Photo: Tsvetelina Nikolaeva

Excise duties on beer and hard liquor will not be increased in 2010, Bulgaria's Parliament decided on November 25 2009. The decision is final after MPs approved the second reading pf amendments to the Excise Duty Act.

Increasing excise duties on alcohol became a much-debated issue in the past month, with twists and turns in the sage.
 
Finance Minister Simeon Dyankov started the debate by saying that he wanted excise duties to increase as of 2010 in order to secure an additional 60 million leva revenue for the Budget, which could be used for funding other activities, among them the treatment of cancer.

Strong public opposition to price increases prompted Prime Minister Boiko Borissov to axe Dyankov's proposal, but the plan surprisingly was resurrected by Parliament's committee on the budget on November 20 2009.

The budget committee's proposal was to increase the excise on spirits by 13.6 per cent to 1.25 leva a litre of pure alcohol, which would mean a 0.7 leva to 0.75 leva a bottle increase in the retail price of spirits, Bulgarian media said.

Many critics of the idea said that such a price hike would boost the grey economy, especially in the case of home-made liquor, mainly the traditional Bulgarian rakiya. Currently households are allowed to make up to 30 litres of rakiya a year without paying tax.

If the budget committee's proposal had been approved, the excise on home-made rakiya, which is set at half the rate of the regular duty, would have become 625 leva for 1000 litres.

It was the increase in the excise duty on home-made spirits, a sensitive subject in Bulgaria, where home-made wine and rakiya are centuries-old traditions, that provoked public discontent.

It made Borissov back down and say that because of this year's considerably high grape production, home-made rakiya production would be higher than the 30-litre tax free-quota.

On November 26 2009, Borissov said that he hoped that MPs would not go ahead with the planned excise duty hike.

To compensate for their decision, MPs decided to introduce a unified tax rate on gambling of 15 per cent as of next year.

Currently, gambling on sports is taxed at 10 per cent of revenue, while all the other games of chance, such as lottery, casino games and bingo, are levied 12 per cent tax.

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Comments

Anonymous Ex Brit Pat Fri, Nov 27 2009 11:24 CET

Hey Mark, now why would you be waiting in a cue, would that be snooker or more likely American Pool. The correct spelling is queu quote "A line of waiting people or vehicles" something which I recall I see regularly in the Post Office or on the streets of Sofia and something that is regularly referred to in Bulgarian "опашка” !!

Anonymous Mark C. Thu, Nov 26 2009 19:57 CET

I say more American English and forget about British English completely. No one ever buys a bottle of "spirits" and the waits in a "cue" for the "public transport" to take them back to their "flat". Where does that nonsense come from? I read the Echo daily and see those words used here all the time and no one living in America (and no one living here calls this county "The States) would ever use any of those words in normal conversation. You buy a bottle of liquor and then wait in line for the bus to take you home [...]

Read the full comment to your apartment (where hopefully your slender young Bulgaria girlfriend will have dinner waiting for you).

Balancing the budget with booze (now that is a real American terms for "spirits) is going to be a failure and it is just as well that the proposed legislation failed.

Anonymous Underneath the Covers Thu, Nov 26 2009 18:30 CET

Hard liquor? I think you mean spirits.

Why do Sofia Echo writers always use American expressions. There are far more people from the British Isles buying the paper than Americans.


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