A group of lawmakers are promoting a bill to raise the tax on tobacco by 60 percent in a bid to reduce the number of smokers, officials said yesterday.
Each pack of locally produced cigarettes would be levied a NT$8 (US$0.23) "special health fee," if an amendment to the Tobacco and Wine Tax Law (菸酒稅法), now under debate in the Legislative Yuan, is approved. The current tax is NT$5 per pack.
"Hopefully the hike of tobacco prices would somewhat stop the rise in the number of local smokers, particularly young smokers," opposition lawmaker Kao Ming-chien (
Their are an estimated 4.5 million smokers, with more than 200,000 of its 23 million people picking up the habit every year, official figures show.
The nation spends NT$18 billion annually on smoking-related illness, which killed some 17,500 people here last year.
Vice Minister of Finance Sam Wang (
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