Ministry of Finance of Ukraine has submitted a proposal to the Cabinet of Ministers to increase the fee per excise tax stamp for alcoholic beverages to UAH 0.3205 from the current UAH 0.1926, and for tobacco products, tobacco-containing products for electric heating (TCHE) and e-cigarette liquids to UAH 0.1484 from UAH 0.091.
According to the text of the relevant government decree, which is available to the news agency Interfax-Ukraine, increase in price of excise stamps is necessary to compensate printing companies for the cost of their production and storage.
The Ministry of Finance in an explanatory memorandum to the draft decree states that the last time the cost of excise stamps for alcoholic beverages and tobacco products was revised more than 8 years ago and now their established value does not correspond to the actual cost of production.
For example, according to the stamp manufacturer, in 2022 alone, its costs for electricity for production are up 74% over 2021, 17% for heat, 107% for heating, 106% for hot water, and 6% for security.
“Prices per ton of paper in 2022, according to the commercial proposals of the National Bank of Ukraine, has already increased by more than 200%, and will increase in 2023 by at least 32.2% (since 2014, the price has increased 4.8 times),” the explanatory note to the draft resolution states.
In addition, the increase in the cost of energy and other resource components makes the issue of compensating the producer of stamps for the costs associated with their storage and sale relevant.
According to the document, 1.9 billion excise stamps for tobacco products and 0.56 billion stamps for alcoholic beverages will be produced by the end of 2022. At the same time for the first 9 months of this year 2.07 billion excise stamps were produced for the above products (2.91 billion in 2021).
Thus, the adoption of the draft decree would require next year for the Ukrainian producers and exporters of alcoholic beverages 71.6 million UAH (0.56 billion pieces * 0.1279 UAH) of additional costs, and for tobacco products – 108.3 million UAH (1.9 billion pieces * 0.057 UAH).
