The Knesset Finance Committee on Monday 12 Iyar 5773 voted unanimously not to lower the price of cigarettes. The committee weighed a motion to remove an 18% tax levied on cigarettes about ten months earlier when the committee was headed by Moshe Gafne (Yahadut Hatorah). The committee members voted to leave the surcharge in place.
Committee chair (Bayit Yehudi) Nissim Slomiansky explained to his colleagues the 18% tax generates 800 million NIS in revenue annually and eliminating it would compel them to find an alternative source to generate the revenue.
The least expensive pack of cigarettes costs 12NIS as compared to 9.96 NIS in 2012.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
Join the official YWN WhatsApp status
3 Responses
Good. Killing 2 birds with one stone. Discouraging smoking and making tax $ off those who do and thus discouraging others from smoking more as well.
Lower it???! They should triple it!! It’s disgusting how accepted smoking is in Israel – if they need to increase taxes (and even if they don’t!) THIS is the place to do it already!!
The only good thing Bloomberg did in NY was to make the price of cigarettes unaffordable which led to a rather large decrease in its use. In Israel they should do the same. Besides how can you possibly justify putting a VAT on fruits and vegetables and not on cigarettes.