Damn Sin Taxes...

Without a doubt, the big news over the weekend is the new budget. New budgets usually come with good and bad news. I’m interested in the ‘Sin’ taxes…yes, I’m a sinner. So what are the sin taxes this year?

1. RM5 increase for 40% content alcohol per litre..(Doesn’t Malaysia only allow 750 ml?)
2. 1 sen per cigarette stick plus 20% increase from last year.

Granted, I’m not a smoker, the cigarette tax doesn’t really affect me. From what I've been reading though, it seems quite reasonable. It goes the same for alcohol.

The fear is that a lot of prices will get marked up. That's true if there is little competition for selling the product. If there is a lot of competition, it’s hard to mark up prices. There are a lot of cigarette retailers out there and prices are pretty much all standardized.

For alcohol, if I were a person who likes to drink at home, it wouldn’t affect me much either. It’s hard to mark up as there are lots of retailers out there. What’s an extra RM5 added to a RM100 bottle of whiskey?

Seems reasonable enough this year, what’s the catch? Here’s the catch. The ability to mark up. What places have the ability to mark up their drinks and cigarettes? Clubs, bars, pubs, etc. Any drinks that these places serve will likely see a large price increase. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the price increase to RM15 or RM20 per bottle. It could easily be more.

Cigarette smokers can still bring in outside cigarettes to these places, so they are unaffected for the most part. The only time when smokers have to pay marked up rates is when they run out of cigarettes in a club, bar, or pub and need to buy it there.

Looks like clubbers get the shaft for this year. Sigh…… do they want us to be bored or what? What else is there to do late at night? Mamak? It’s a mamak conspiracy. Mark my words….Malaysia will have the first mamak food cartel.