Bad news for all you smokers and good news for everyone else (particularly unwitting second hand smokers). The government is planning to increase the goods tax on cigarettes in next month, effectively increasing the price of cigarettes in the country.
“The price of cigarettes will increase when then government ups the cigarette tax from 8.4% to 10%,” said Red Mild East Indonesia Regional Sales Manager Joseph Kopalit, as quoted by Bisnis Indonesia yesterday.
With this tax hike, the price of a standard pack of cigarettes is expected to rise to around Rp 20k.
Joseph criticized the tax increase because it would create a bigger burden on low-income cigarette consumers.
“Their income can be uncertain at times. When the price of cigarettes rise, they’re going to withhold their desire to buy cigarettes.”
We understand Joseph’s reasoning came from an individualistic standpoint, but shouldn’t having fewer smokers in Indonesia be considered a good thing? After all, we don’t want to be known as the country where smoking is so widely accepted that even babies want to have a puff or two.
