Econ Min considers new tobacco duties to make up for overdue payments

General Customs Inspectorate (GIC) has recently claimed that three tobacco companies -- Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds and British-American Tobacco (BAT) -- owe the State Treasury almost zl. 722 million in overdue duties and taxes for tobacco imports in 1997 and 1998. In 1998 the duty for processed tobacco was 273.3% and in the following year, 251.7%. The duty for unprocessed tobacco is only 30%. The companies found ways to classify most of their imported tobacco as unprocessed. The Economy Ministry has proposed increasing duties for unprocessed tobacco to 105%, with a second proposal to decrease duties for processed tobacco to 180%. The Ministry did not offer any information about the planned changes. "Making our plans public would be unreasonable," claimed Anna Skowronska-Luczynska, Deputy Economy Minister in charge of duties. It is not known how the World Trade Organization (WTO) and European Union (EU) would react to such plans. (Gazeta Wyborcza, page 23) M.M.