Smokers given cigarette price guidance

Egypt’s Ministry of Finance has produced a cigarette price list and consumers are being asked to inform the country’s tax authority if they are asked by retailers to pay more than the list prices, according to a story in the Daily News Egypt.

There would seem to be a discrepancy between some of the prices of cigarettes declared to the authority for the calculation of taxes and the prices charged to consumers.

The head of the tax authority, Mamdouh Omar, said the authority had recently noticed increases in cigarette selling prices that ranged from E£0.5 and E£2 per pack.

About £3 billion in profits from the sale of cigarettes were going directly to retailers without the relevant taxes being paid, he added.

Omar said that there were to be no increases in the retail prices of cigarettes. And he added that manufacturing and import companies would be responsible for setting the selling price and informing the tax authority to determine the taxes due, which amounted to 50 per cent of the selling price plus E£1.25 per pack.