Cigarettes will be more expensive next year by about 10%, and those who will buy cars will pay more for the pollution tax because of a weaker leu in the first days of October 2008 compared to 2007.
According to the Tax Code, the rate at which it's calculated the duty tax and the car tax is set on the first working day of October of the previous year, published in the Official Journal of the European Union. Thus, if a year ago the European Central Bank (BCE) has shown a rate of 3.3441 lei for one euro, the course announced yesterday was of 3.7413 lei / euro. Thus, the value in lei of the duty tax will increase by nearly 40 money.
This difference in exchange rate will hit the drivers in terms of the cost of gasoline because a part of the fuels from the market will be more expensive.
Gilda Lazar, director of corporate affairs at Japan Tobacco International (JTI) Romania, estimates that the impact of the exchange rate on the price of cigarettes of next year will be of around 10%. At this price increase will be added and the related increase of duty tax of 50 euros per a thousand cigarettes, currently at 61.2 euros in July 2009. "The prices will increase in three or four steps to avoid a shock for the consumers", told us the representative of the cigarettes manufacturer.