New ?sin taxes? mean higher prices
There are developments on the labour front tonight as Belize’s unions and private sector meet with government and amongst themselves. But while the strike by teachers and public officers continues for the ninth and fourth day respectively, Belize’s consumers are for the first time feeling the direct effects of government’s new budget and its increased taxes. Those feeling the immediate pinch are smokers, beer and rum drinkers and consumers of soft drinks.
Belize Brewing wasted no time in upping their prices caused by the increase in excise tax from a dollar eighty to three dollars and sixty cents per gallon. While that tax hike works out to one point four cents per ounce–or fourteen cents on a ten ounce bottle of Belikin beer and stout and eleven point two cents on an eight ounce bottle of Lighthouse, the new prices to retailers reflect an increase of twenty-five cents per bottle or six dollars per twenty-four bottle case, that case price now standing at forty-four dollars and twenty-five cents. How your local shop or bar will choose to pass on these price hikes has not yet become clear but look for increases ranging from twenty-five to fifty cents.
And if you are a Guinness fan, brace yourself: the cost of a case of that heavenly beverage has gone up by a whopping ten dollars, from fifty-two to sixty-two dollars or forty-two cents per bottle. A spokesman for Belize Brewing attributed the steep increase to the royalties the company must pay for the brewing rights.
And while you might say–as representatives Hyde and Espat did last week–that you can choose to drink beer or not, what parent can deny children their favourite soft drink? A check with Bowen and Bowen today revealed that their wholesale prices have gone from eighteen dollars and ninety-five cents to twenty-one dollars and thirty-five cents for twelve ounce glass bottles, twenty-three dollars and forty-five cents to twenty-five dollars and ninety-five cents for half litre glass bottles, twenty-nine dollars to thirty-five dollars for half litre plastic bottles and twenty-six dollars and twenty cents to thirty-two dollars and twenty cents for litre plastic. Reports are that retailers are already charging an extra shilling per bottle.
In the case of tobacco and rum, at newstime we were still awaiting official word from Caribbean Tobacco and Travellers Liquors respectively, but based on the tripling of excise tax on tobacco and doubling on alcohol the price increases at the retail level should far exceed those of beer.
And what about the additional two percentage point rise in the so called environmental tax on all imports? That levy came into effect today but if you saw higher prices on the shelves prepare to protest. That’s because with the Customs Department on strike, no importer can even clear goods from the port, let alone put them on the shelves. The higher prices should be felt over the next few weeks–assuming the strike ends–as newly imported goods work their way up the distribution chain. Business houses we spoke to today say that–like the Prime Minister suggested–they do not expect to pass on to consumers any increase in business tax.
