The current tobacco excise duty (Tabaksteuer)....since 1 January 2026....isaround 12.3 cents per cigarette.
You can figure the ad valorem tax to around 19.84 percent of the retail selling price (Kleinverkaufspreis / KVP).
Pack of smokes.....3.91 Euro of excise duty tax.
End of the story? NO. Then the VAT is figured. VAT is currently at 19-percent, and by 2027....likely to extend to 21-perccent.
So...one pack costs around 9.50 Euro (20 smokes).
More coming?
Well....there's a draft being pushed. A pack....after this new add-on tax occurs....will be in the 10.50 Euro range.
The real end of the story? My humble belief is that by the end of 2028....at least another 50 Euro-cents of tax will be added.
I personally don't care (I've never smoked)....but there's around 11-million Germans (age 18 to 90).....who smoke, and a fair number are at the poverty line. Those unhappy folks might want to one day want a opposition political stance. Since all this tax-happy stuff is CDU-SPD related.....I wonder what opposition party this group would hang upon?
Any ideas?
2 comments:
Canada has high cigarette taxes and they were losing so much revenue to Canadians going over the US border to buy cigarettes that they lowered the tax, which caused the Indian tribes to complain Because the lower tax was cutting into their cigarette smuggling operations.
Back in the Chancellor Schroeder years (2000 era)....his health minister got the gov't hyped-up.....bumped up smokes taxes a good bit. Six months pass....tax revenue folks hold a meeting (health minister there)....massive hole on smokes tax revenue. Health minister is all peppy/happy....his program is showing results. Tax revenue boss is there....says 'no'....his people have noticed a huge upswing on people going to Poland, Austria, Lux-City, Czech, etc....returning with dozens/hundreds of cartons of smokes. Gov't could not admit that failure...kept the taxes in place, but had to add more Zoll-agents to halt cars crossing back into Germany.
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