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Deputy Finance Minister Thanusak Lek-uthai said that the government would change the method of calculating excise tax for alcoholic beverages, including liquor, wine and beer, by using retail prices or wholesale prices at the last step in the supply chain as the basis for its calculation.

Currently, the Excise Department calculates taxes for locally made alcohol beverages based on ex-factory prices and for imported beverages based on CIF (cost, insurance and freight) prices. The new calculation method will help the government to collect excise tax at the full scale. By the current method, manufacturers of alcohol beverages usually report price (for calculating excise tax) lower than the actual price.

The Cabinet on Tuesday approved a big increase in the alcohol beverage tax ceiling. Under the proposal, the excise tax ceiling for fermented beverages, such as beers and wines, and distilled beverages, such as whisky and brandy, increases to Bt2,000 per litre of 100 per cent alcohol content, up from the current Bt100 per litre or 60 per cent of the product value for wine and beer, and Bt400 per litre or 50 per cent of the product value for whisky and brandy, which ever is higher. 

 

Rejection ‘not due to contamination’ 

 Commerce Minister Niwatthumrong Boosongpaisan said yesterday that the rejection of a 30,000-kilogram shipment of Thai rice to the US was because the rice lot did not meet the specifications of the orders, not because of contamination or degradation of quality.

He said US Ambassador to Thailand Kristie Kenney had confirmed the matter. Niwatthumrong is asking for a formal document from the US to confirm the case.

Earlier, opposition MP Varong Dejkitvikrom said in Parliament that the US had returned 32 tonnes of a 40-tonne shipment of rice after finding it to be contaminated.