SOUTH AFRICA - ALL NEW SUGAR SWEETENED BEVERAGE TAX AND OTHER TAXES IN SA'S BUDGET 2016

Minister of Finance Pravin Gordhan on Wednesday said there will be an ‘introduction of a tax on sugar-sweetened beverages’.
Delivering the 2016 Budget speech in Parliament, announced that alcohol and tobacco will see an increase of 6 and 8.5%.

“The Increase in excise duties on tobacco products will peak at 717 in the year 2016 to 2017, while increase in alcoholic beverages will be 1517,” Minister said.
Earlier, the Chairperson of the National Tax and SARS stakeholders Committees at SAIPA, Ettien Retief said: “I think it has become expected for sin taxes to increase each year,and this year will be no different the question is how significantly will it increase because the one thing that sin taxes tries to do is to encourage people to consume less.

That is why tobacco, cigarettes and alcohol are the key factors of sin taxes one thing I expect us to look at going forward is other types of consumables that have impact on health.”

Chairman and CEO of The Tobacco Institute of Southern Africa(TISA) Francois van der Merwe said he wouldn’t be surprised if the Minister of Finance announced an increase in sin taxes.

“It would be naive of us not to expect an increase, we just hope that it is line with the inflation rate and not more,” Francois van der Merwe said.

Van der Merwe said his only concern is the increase in taxes because that will make the production process much more expensive which will, in-turn, make way for the production of illegal tobacco.

“High taxes will create a demand for cheap products because those markets do not pay tax. Already the government has lost almost R25bn since 2010 due to the illegal operations. We are prepared to work with the government to shut down these illegal operations that are consuming billions that belong to the state,” he said.

Last year Sin Tax law payers had to dig deeper into their pockets when personal indulgence spiked. A quart of beer increased by 15,5 cents while smokers paid 82 cents more for a pack of cigarettes. Sparkling wine prices hiked by an extra 42 cents per bottle and whisky lovers paid an additional R3.77 a bottle.

FOR MORE ON THE BUDGET BREAKDOWN CLICK HERE 

VIA - thenewage.co.za