From to­day, smok­ers will be pay­ing more for their favourite brands of cig­a­rettes. The West In­di­an To­bac­co Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (Wit­co) has an­nounced high­er prices for 12 prod­ucts, rang­ing from $15 for Broad­way 10s to $36 for Dun­hill 20s.Prices for du Mau­ri­er prod­ucts now cost be­tween $17 and $31.

This is the re­sult of high­er tax­es on im­port­ed and lo­cal­ly man­u­fac­tured al­co­hol and to­bac­co prod­ucts which took ef­fect at mid­night. The ex­cise du­ty on lo­cal­ly-man­u­fac­tured to­bac­co prod­ucts has in­creased by 15 per cent while on al­co­holic prod­ucts it is up by 20 per cent.

The mea­sures, which were an­nounced in the 2017 bud­get, are ex­pect­ed to net an ad­di­tion­al $120 mil­lion in ex­cise and cus­tom du­ties, $60 mil­lion from ex­cise du­ties on lo­cal­ly pro­duced al­co­hol and to­bac­co and $60 mil­lion on cus­toms du­ties on im­port­ed al­co­hol and to­bac­co prod­ucts.

In mak­ing the an­nounce­ment in his bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert had said it was based on con­cern for the health and well-be­ing of cit­i­zens.

An­oth­er bud­get mea­sure that took ef­fect at mid­night was the sev­en per cent charge on pur­chas­es that ar­rive in T&T through the couri­er com­pa­nies or di­rect­ly by in­di­vid­u­als, via air freight. This mea­sure is ex­pect­ed to raise an ad­di­tion­al $70 mil­lion in rev­enue.

The tax is due and payable at the bond­ed ware­hous­es be­fore clear­ance of goods or di­rect­ly to Cus­toms in the same way that VAT and cus­toms du­ty are cur­rent­ly col­lect­ed.

AM­CHAM: On­line tax un­clear

Mean­while, AM­CHAM T&T is urg­ing the Gov­ern­ment to re­think its po­si­tion on the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the on­line pur­chase tax (OPT), which is to be ap­plied to all 'on­line' pur­chas­es sent via air freight.

In a re­lease last night, AM­CHAM said it was dis­ap­point­ed there had been no con­sul­ta­tion with the pri­vate sec­tor on the mat­ter, ei­ther be­fore the an­nounce­ment in the Bud­get or be­fore to­day's im­ple­men­ta­tion dead­line.

AM­CHAM said the Con­troller of Cus­toms met with the couri­er and air freight com­pa­nies for a first stake­hold­ers meet­ing yes­ter­day and it was "ob­vi­ous that there is no clear way for­ward, yet the OPT is tar­get­ed to be im­ple­ment­ed with­in 24 hours."

"The OPT (which to our knowl­edge is yet to be pro­claimed in law) places the onus on the air freight and couri­er com­pa­nies, and any com­pa­ny bring­ing in items via air to cor­rect­ly iden­ti­fy which goods are for com­mer­cial use as op­posed to per­son­al use. The de­ter­mi­na­tion of the use of goods bought by a cus­tomer is not the purview of an air freight or couri­er com­pa­ny," AM­CHAM said.

"Fur­ther, it leaves these com­pa­nies open to pos­si­ble penal­ties as a com­pa­ny's in­ter­pre­ta­tion of whether an item at­tracts the OPT may dif­fer to the in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the Cus­toms of­fi­cial. It is al­so un­clear if med­ical sup­plies or life­sav­ing med­i­cines would be con­sid­ered an 'on­line pur­chase' and would there­fore be sub­ject­ed to the OPT."

AM­CHAM said the lack of clear rules/guide­lines could fur­ther im­pede the coun­try's com­pet­i­tive­ness, and that it is im­por­tant that as laws/guide­lines change, the en­vi­ron­ment re­main pre­dictable.

"We are ask­ing that the Gov­ern­ment en­gage in mean­ing­ful di­a­logue with stake­hold­ers. AM­CHAM T&T, through its mem­ber­ship, rep­re­sents more than 80% of the items brought in via air, and we re­main ready to meet and work with Gov­ern­ment on this and oth­er ini­tia­tives," it said.