The introduction of a digital excise tax on tobacco will increase the transparency of the process of charging and collecting the excise tax itself; this should not affect prices, since the cost of tobacco products depends primarily on the volume of excise duty, Oleg Barvin, director of the Department of Legal Affairs and External Corporate Relations of the BAT, the Russian structure of British American Tobacco, told RIA Novosti.
Earlier on Wednesday, the agency got acquainted with the roadmap of the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation, from which it follows that the introduction of a digital excise tax on tobacco will begin in the country in the first quarter of 2024.
Later, the operator of the Honest Sign labeling system, the Center for the Development of Advanced Technologies (CRPT), informed the agency that the tobacco industry in Russia will be able to save more than 2 billion rubles annually by switching to digital excise taxes.
"Now the industry, including our company, is actively preparing for the introduction of the digital excise tax. We support this measure and believe that it will increase the transparency of the process of accrual and collection of excise duty. As for the prices of tobacco products, they depend primarily not on the way the excise tax is administered, but on the volume of the excise burden. If the indexation of the excise tax next year takes place as planned in accordance with the rates laid down in the Tax Code, then we do not expect a noticeable increase in prices for tobacco products," Barvin said.
In mid-November 2022, Deputy Finance Minister Alexey Sazanov, at a meeting with foreign business at the American Chamber of Commerce in Russia, said that the ministry was actively working on the introduction of a digital excise tax on tobacco and beer. According to him, it is assumed that the tax service will automatically calculate tax liabilities when products are put into circulation on the basis of information that is available in information systems for labeling tobacco and beer.
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