CAP Hopes Govt Will Reinstate Sales Tax On Cigarettes In Budget 2025

GEORGE TOWN, Oct 17 (Bernama) -- The Consumers’ Association of Penang (CAP) hopes the government will reinstate the sales tax on cigarettes in Budget 2025, set to be tabled tomorrow, as it could lead to significant savings for thousands of families.

Its president Mohideen Abdul Kadeer said the last sales and service tax on tobacco products was imposed in 2018, and expressed hope that a mandatory sales tax on cigarettes would be enforced to reduce the number of smokers, currently estimated at five million.

“Based on CAP’s survey, smokers typically spend about RM500 a month on cigarettes, whereas healthy food does not cost that much money.

“Increasing cigarette prices through higher taxes has proven effective in cutting down smoking rates in other countries, across all income levels. It even encourages some to quit and prevents others from taking up smoking,” he said in a statement today.

Mohideen said the absence of a sales tax on cigarettes for the past six years was a great disappointment, and CAP hoped that Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, who is also the Finance Minister, would take firm action to reinstate it.

The Prime Minister is scheduled to table Budget 2025 in Parliament at 4 pm tomorrow. It is the third budget by the MADANI government under Anwar’s leadership and the last under the 12th Malaysia Plan (2021-2025) before transitioning to the 13th Malaysia Plan for the next five-year period.

-- BERNAMA