FINANCE minister Mthuli Ncube has shot down calls to increase excise duty on alcohol as well as levy a tax on environment polluters as part of measures to raise funds to cushion the security sector and war veterans from economic hardships.
The parliamentary portfolio committee on Defence had tabled a report recommending the levying of one percent excise duty on alcohol, a development that would have seen the price of alcoholic beverages increase again.
But Ncube said, instead, other ways of raising funds to ring-fence the security sector should be considered.
“The excise duty on alcohol and beverages is already very high. It is averaging 40 percent. Now we are being asked to add one percent and it will be too much. Any further increase could be regressive and that negatively impacts growth of production volumes in the sector,” Ncube said.
Source – dailynews
