Liquor & wine prices set to raise substantially

[Mikee_Moose]

Expect to pay almost double for your imported liquors and wines very soon. The government in its drive to pull in more tax revenues has singled out taxes collected by the Customs and the Excise departments as being far below target. They have now set new targets for C6 officers in the Customs and Excise Department to chase. If they dont get the revenues, they get demoted to C5. The effect? Customs is investigating all importers of wines and liquor products, scrutinizing invoices looking for double invoicing practices. Companies caught, will have their Directors fined and possibly jailed. Almost all of the importers follow a practice of double invoicing, simply because they HAVE to in order to be even close to competitive.

Importers are now clearing stocks and closing their companies down. Once existing stocks are clear, you can expect all future imports to go by the book and thus be retail priced 2 to 3 times higher than they are now. The future looks bleak for wine lovers as many labels wont be onthe shelves any more and we will be stuck with over priced plonk to drink. So start stocking up or switch to local liquor.

[PattayaDaz]

****!!!! Daz is off to foodland now to order 4 cases of Argento.....

[sunsnow]

f*ck! I was only joking

If they really wanted to get rid of undesirables all they would have to do is two-tier pricing on booze. The cheap charlies would leave in droves at the exhorbirtant price of lying around all day drinking. :wink:

Hi, people, looking for your help: what does "two tier" pricing mean? And double invoicing?

I noticed already in Thailand that imported alcohol is (comparably) very expensive, in a same way it is in most countries (except Scandinavia where all booze is expensive :evil: ) local produced goods (=liquer) are less pricy, taste as good and as said, cheap.

[frankenburner2]

lucky for me i'm a singa and sangsom kinda guy!

[frankenburner2]

No surprises there then

help! i'm being stalked!

(psst...PiAnt....really....not directed at you)

[zeusbheld]

f*ck! I was only joking

If they really wanted to get rid of undesirables all they would have to do is two-tier pricing on booze. The cheap charlies would leave in droves at the exhorbirtant price of lying around all day drinking. :wink:

:shock: proof that the gov't monitors this website :shock:

[sunsnow]

Two Tiered Pricing- two levels of pricing, for example "Citizens/Residents" can either enter National Parks for free or 20 baht, Non Residents pay 200 baht or more. he same with many temples or attractions.

Thank you. This was very familiar, I should have known.

Mikee_Moose: Double invoicing? I know how to invoice, but how you do double invoicing to avoid things?

[Chris]

Starts to become more and more like Saudi Arabia every day.. :-S.

Off to buy four cases of vodka @ foodland.....

[CiaranM]

Starts to become more and more like Saudi Arabia every day.. :-S.

Off to buy four cases of vodka @ foodland.....

try doing that in Saudia Arabia

[Dave40]

The govt always increases tax on ciggies and alcohol down here in Aust they put a high tax on becks and heineken etc, they even tax Tassie beer at a high rate because it's a boutique beer, (cascade and boags)almost the same as taxing beer brewed on samui) (just an excuse to get more money out of us) governments should be a law against them.

[CMG_UK]

Another step backwards. More ill-conceived legislation.

[Mikee_Moose]

Two Tiered Pricing- two levels of pricing, for example "Citizens/Residents" can either enter National Parks for free or 20 baht, Non Residents pay 200 baht or more. he same with many temples or attractions.

Thank you. This was very familiar, I should have known.

Mikee_Moose: Double invoicing? I know how to invoice, but how you do double invoicing to avoid things?

Dont worry about it. Dbl invoicing is a technique used by importers to reduce their import tax. Typically, if importers import at actual invoice values you would be paying 2-3 times higher prices than you are paying now. The import taxes and excise taxes here are so high as to make imported liquor products unfeasible and unmarketable.

[Mikee_Moose]

Increasing taxes on ciggies and booze is an accepted practice of most governements to increase revenue

Sure, but it should then be applied to ALL liquor, not just imports. Since this is not the case here, the health and social argument just doesn't hold water.

But I wonder who would be willing to commit political suicide just before the elections by announcing the intent to dramatically increase the price of all liquor. I can only imagine the outcry..

Local 40% spirit here in Philippines costs 22bt for 0,5L. Now that price serves nobodys interests anymore and you can take a wild guess if that makes people less or more prone to become alcoholics.

Increase the price of ALL HARD liquor and leave it untouched for those with less than 15% alc if you wish to gain any social benefits and increase revenues

Locally produced liquors are also subject to Excise tax, although not subject to import tax. The excise tax is 60% on wines.

The correct procedure for the Thai government to do would be to apply a fixed % tax per volume, rather than applying a tax to invoice value. The effect would be that lower quality liquors and wines would likely increase in price and higher quality items would come down in price. Another effect would be that importers would not have to double invoice any more. Government gets its revenues, importers stay clean and consumers get better priced and better quality products. Everybody wins.