PHOTO
10 June 2017
JEDDAH: The Saudi government will from Sunday start implementing a selective tax that includes products that are harmful to health, primarily tobacco, energy drinks and sodas.
Recent statistics show that 6 million smokers in Saudi Arabia will be affected by the tax, Al-Hayat newspaper reported.
Implementation is part of a selective tax agreement the Kingdom signed along with the other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member states, which was approved by the GCC secretariat last month.
The tax rate is defined according to the danger a product poses to health, with a 100 percent rate being imposed on the most harmful: Tobacco and energy drinks. A 50 percent rate will be imposed on all kinds of soft drinks.
The Kingdom is 64th out of 127 countries in the price ranking of a pack of cigarettes, according to Numbeo, a crowd-sourced global database of reported consumer prices. The price of a pack of cigarettes in Saudi Arabia will double from June 11.
JEDDAH: The Saudi government will from Sunday start implementing a selective tax that includes products that are harmful to health, primarily tobacco, energy drinks and sodas.
Recent statistics show that 6 million smokers in Saudi Arabia will be affected by the tax, Al-Hayat newspaper reported.
Implementation is part of a selective tax agreement the Kingdom signed along with the other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member states, which was approved by the GCC secretariat last month.
The tax rate is defined according to the danger a product poses to health, with a 100 percent rate being imposed on the most harmful: Tobacco and energy drinks. A 50 percent rate will be imposed on all kinds of soft drinks.
The Kingdom is 64th out of 127 countries in the price ranking of a pack of cigarettes, according to Numbeo, a crowd-sourced global database of reported consumer prices. The price of a pack of cigarettes in Saudi Arabia will double from June 11.
© Arab News 2017
