The government is to double the "special health tax" on tobacco products in a move to reduce the number of smokers and smoking-related diseases.
According to amendments to the Tobacco and Liquor Tax Law (
The fee for loose tobacco, cigars and other cigarette products will be increased from NT$250 to NT$500 per kilogram.
Ninety percent of the proceeds will be funneled into the national health insurance program as a safety fund, while the remaining 10 percent will go to central and local governments to pay for measures related to health problems, a crackdown on bootleg cigarette products, combating tax evasion on tobacco products and social welfare.
Statistics show that there are 4.5 million smokers in Taiwan, with more than 200,000 of the nation's 23 million people picking up the habit every year.
Smokers are six times more likely to develop throat cancer than their non-smoking counterparts, 5.8 times more likely to develop cervical cancer and are three times more likely to develop lung cancer.
The nation spends an average of NT$18 billion annually on smoking-related illnesses.
The move to raise money for the national health-insurance program will undoubtedly affect sales, manufacturers said.
The tax hike is expected to generate NT$6 billion in additional tax revenue for the national health-insurance program.
Chan Shih-chu (
"We believe the imposition of the double tax will be completely reflected in the retail price and decrease tobacco sales," he said in a phone interview.
Although it is hard to evaluate the new rule's impact, Chan, citing a US study, said sales could slide by 3 percent to 5 percent for every 10 percent increase in price.
TTL, which has a 40 percent share of the local tobacco market, sold 1.7 million boxes of cigarettes last year, raking in over NT$26 billion in revenues.
But the company has seen gross profits decline in recent years with several anti-tobacco rules in place.
The Tobacco Hazards Act (菸害防治法), for example, prohibits any promotional activities for tobacco products, and Chan was noncommittal when asked whether the firm would come up with any methods to offset the new regulation's impact.
The CIA has a message for Chinese government officials worried about their place in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) government: Come work with us. The agency released two Mandarin-language videos on social media on Thursday inviting disgruntled officials to contact the CIA. The recruitment videos posted on YouTube and X racked up more than 5 million views combined in their first day. The outreach comes as CIA Director John Ratcliffe has vowed to boost the agency’s use of intelligence from human sources and its focus on China, which has recently targeted US officials with its own espionage operations. The videos are “aimed at
STEADFAST FRIEND: The bills encourage increased Taiwan-US engagement and address China’s distortion of UN Resolution 2758 to isolate Taiwan internationally The Presidential Office yesterday thanked the US House of Representatives for unanimously passing two Taiwan-related bills highlighting its solid support for Taiwan’s democracy and global participation, and for deepening bilateral relations. One of the bills, the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act, requires the US Department of State to periodically review its guidelines for engagement with Taiwan, and report to the US Congress on the guidelines and plans to lift self-imposed limitations on US-Taiwan engagement. The other bill is the Taiwan International Solidarity Act, which clarifies that UN Resolution 2758 does not address the issue of the representation of Taiwan or its people in
DEFENDING DEMOCRACY: Taiwan shares the same values as those that fought in WWII, and nations must unite to halt the expansion of a new authoritarian bloc, Lai said The government yesterday held a commemoration ceremony for Victory in Europe (V-E) Day, joining the rest of the world for the first time to mark the anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe. Taiwan honoring V-E Day signifies “our growing connections with the international community,” President William Lai (賴清德) said at a reception in Taipei on the 80th anniversary of V-E Day. One of the major lessons of World War II is that “authoritarianism and aggression lead only to slaughter, tragedy and greater inequality,” Lai said. Even more importantly, the war also taught people that “those who cherish peace cannot
US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo on Friday expressed concern over the rate at which China is diversifying its military exercises, the Financial Times (FT) reported on Saturday. “The rates of change on the depth and breadth of their exercises is the one non-linear effect that I’ve seen in the last year that wakes me up at night or keeps me up at night,” Paparo was quoted by FT as saying while attending the annual Sedona Forum at the McCain Institute in Arizona. Paparo also expressed concern over the speed with which China was expanding its military. While the US
RSS