Resist The Ridiculous Excise Duty Spike

The move to want to increase the cost of excise stamps for bottled water, juices, and any other non-alcoholic drinks, cosmetics, alcoholic beverages, tobacco, and nicotine products and export products subject to excise with effect from 1st March 2023 is ridiculous.

The move is not only going to affect businesses in Kenya but will scare away potential investors who might be eyeing to set base in Kenya. With businesses trying to find a footing after the Covid-19 pandemic, the proposal sounds like a sin to even imagine.

Related Content: KAM Protests Move To Increase Excise Duty By Over 100%

The move to increase the excise duty on stamps comes barely four months after a 6.3 percent inflation adjustment on specific excise tax rates that impacted cosmetics, confectionary, alcoholic, and non-alcoholic beverages including bottled water, and tobacco and nicotine products, among other products.

What is more, three months before the inflation adjustment, there was an increase in excise taxes from 1 July 2022, by between 10 and 20 percent through the Finance Act, 2022. This begs the question; is the government out to see businesses die or thrive?

Related Content: Excise Duty on Beer, Water to Increase By 6.3% From October 2022

For those who might ask, Excise tax stamps are pieces of paper that are affixed on every bottle of juice, bottled water, soda, beer, alcoholic cosmetics, and tobacco products.

The stamps are sold by the Kenya Revenue Authority and they allow the KRA to verify the authenticity of the marked products and indicate to the authority that the required excise tax has been paid.

The irony here is that Kenya Revenue Authority wants the cost of these stamps to go up when KRA itself is still buying/making them at the normal initial price. This begs another question; why would KRA demand more on something they are not spending more on?

This should be resisted, dropped, buried, and should never be allowed to resurrect.

Related Content: Cost Of Digital Loans To Rise On New 20% Excise Duty

About Juma

Juma is an enthusiastic journalist who believes that journalism has power to change the world either negatively or positively depending on how one uses it.(020) 528 0222
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