FinMin Teodorovici maintains need to increase tobacco excise duty

The increase of the tobacco excise duty was necessary for the harmonization of a European Directive, otherwise Romania risks triggering an infringement procedure, the Minister of Public Finance, Eugen Teodorovici, told a press conference on Tuesday adding that "he has no gift to levy taxes and duties." 

"As concerns the tobacco excise, it has to do with notifications received from the European Commission cautioning against the initiation of an infringement for Romania for failing to harmonize or to update with the respective directive. The Ministry of Finance does not - and I have told you again and again - I do not have the gift to levy taxes and duties. As much as some would strive to pin OUG 114 on me, no matter how much some of them would like, when discussing specifically, I mean specifically, they have no arguments. I do not like duties and taxes and I will not increase either their number or their amount. No matter how many crazy people write on Facebook, no matter how many inept people you will come across and will tell all sorts of things about me, they have no arguments. Ask them for concrete arguments," said Eugen Teodorovici. 

According to him, the notification came from the European Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs, Taxation and Customs, Pierre Moscovici. 

The level of the total excise duty for cigarettes will be increased, starting with September 1, 2019, from 483.74 lei/1,000 cigarettes to 503.97 lei/1,000 cigarettes, according to the draft Ordinance for the regulation of fiscal-budgetary measures, published by the Ministry of Finance on Tuesday. 

Moreover, for soft drinks the sugar content of which is between 5-8 g sugar/100 ml, the excise duty will be 0.8 lei/liter, and for those whose sugar content exceeds 8 g sugar/100 ml the excise duty is one leu (Romanian currency, ed.n.) per liter and will be payable by producers, importers or those who will purchase intra-Community, according to the same draft Ordinance. 

The excise of soft drinks with high sugar content will bring additional revenues to the budget of 320 million lei (rd EUR 67 million) this year, the MFP maintains. 

For its part, the National Soft Drinks Association (ANBR) stated, in a press release sent to AGERPRES last week, that the Government's intention to introduce an additional duty for sugary soft drinks is a discriminatory and disproportionate measure because soft drinks represent, on average, only 3 percent of the daily caloric intake of an adult, and its sole purpose seems to be to boost the revenues to the state budget.