Ministry will go back to tobacco, alcohol excises for 2015-2017 budget draft
MOSCOW. Oct 16 (Interfax) - The Russian Finance Ministry will go back to the issue of excises for tobacco and alcohol when the 2015-2017 federal budget draft is compiled, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov told the press Wednesday.
The agreement was reached in a meeting with Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, he said. "We agreed to go back to this issue. For now nothing is changing in the budget. But when the 2015-2017 budget is drafted we will go back to this," he said.
The minister said there is currently a problem with the difference in the level of excises for tobacco and alcohol in Russia and Customs Union partners Belarus and Kazakhstan. This makes the prices different, he said. "Especially in border areas there is a differentiation in prices and the products of our trade partners are squeezing domestic products out because of the difference in price," he said.
To resolve this problem excise policy in the Customs Union needs to be synchronized and order needs to be brought over control of imports without excises in Russia, he said.
