Tax on tobacco prompt Philip Morris to change tactics

This has been promoted by changes to national tax regulations which impose a much higher tax on ready cigarettes than on the tobacco for roll-your-own cigarettes. The excise tax on pouch tobacco which can be used to roll 1,000 cigarettes amounts to zł.52 while the tax for the same number of ready to smoke cigarettes is zł.112. Moreover, the government plans to increase the excise tax on such cigarettes even further - initial projections for the next year budgets envisage that the tax will rise by 14.7%. "In a situation where there is such a huge discrepancy between the tax rates we should expect that the manufacturers will develop the production of the products burdened with lower tax. This is why we entered the pouch tobacco market," explained PM Polska president Jacek Olczak. PM, which now has a 38% share of the domestic ready cigarettes market, wants to win a 40% share of the pouch tobacco market. It is also probable that other cigarettes producers will follow suit. (Parkiet, p. 9; Puls Biznesu, p. 10) E.B.