Good news for beer and wine drinkers - duties to go down

On Wednesday, Edmund Cichowski, the director of the excise duty department in the Finance Ministry informed that the government is considering loweri ng excise duty on beer and wine in 2004. "We will substantially lower the r ates from January 1. Afterwards we will monitor the market and we might make another move just after Poland joins the EU," said Cichowski. The tax might be even lowered by 20%-30% in total. "I cannot confirm this. However, what we intend to do, is about one third of what we must do in order to adjust o ur taxation to average EU rates," explained Cichowski. At present the excise rate on beer amounts to EUR 1.68 per 1 hectoliter in Poland, while in the EU it is EUR 0.78. However, with wine, Poland collects EUR 33.24 per hectolite r, while the EU does not demand any tax from its members. (Rzeczpospolita, p. B2) M.M.