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Imported booze and tobacco under taxation spotlight
(Volume 26, No. 513)
IMPORTED alcohol and tobacco products and drinking water must carry a tax seal or risk confiscation, tax authorities have warned.
The Internal Revenue Department of the Ministry of Finance and Revenue says that starting March 4, revenue teams throughout the country will apply tax seals to those products.
Tax seals on local brands can be peeled off and resold. Sometimes they are placed on bottles of imitation liquor. Some businessmen who wanted to evade tax were buying seals and reusing them.
The teams will comprise officers from the township revenue authorities and administration, customs, the Myanma Economic Bank, the Yangon or Mandalay City Development Committee or Department of Development Affairs, and the police.
Any imported beer, cigarettes, wine, spirits or drinking water found unsealed one month after the operation will be nationalised under customs laws, an official of the Internal Revenue Department said.
Foreign liquor is imported on the recommendation of the Ministry of Hotels and Tourism to promote tourism and is available at hotels and restaurants, said an official from Directorate of Trade.
Locally made alcohol, beer and cigarettes have been placed under tax seal since April 2007.
Local beers pay 50 percent of the selling price in commercial tax, other forms of alcohol 75pc, and whisky and rum pay a massive 200pc of the selling price as commercial tax.
“Tax seals on local brands can be peeled off and resold. Sometimes they are placed on bottles of imitation liquor. Some businessmen who wanted to evade tax were buying seals and reusing them. Seals should be durable, in the interests of both consumers and companies,” said one liquor store owner on Bo Aung Kyaw Street.
“We will use good glue so the seal cannot easily be peeled off,” said the Internal Revenue Department official.
The purpose of levying tax on foreign liquor is not only to raise revenue, but also to reduce the inflow of products that affect health and morals, officials say.
