Indonesia considers imposing excise tax on sweetened beverages

Indonesia considers imposing excise tax on sweetened beverages. (Shutterstock/monticello)

Jakarta (VNA) – The Indonesian government has considered realising its plan to impose an excise tax on all packaged sweetenedbeverages.

At a recent hearing, the Finance Ministry and the House of Representatives' Budget Committee of Indonesia agreed to include sugary packaged drinks onthe list of goods subject to special income tax in the draft state budget for2023.

Indonesian Minister of Finance Sri Mulyani stressed that sweetened beveragesand plastic products bring a lot of negative impacts to public health and theenvironment.

Implementing the excise would largelydepend on the pace of recovery next year, he said.

The Finance Ministry estimates that the sweetenedbeverage excise will rake in roughly 6.25 trillion rupiah in annual revenue.

TheIndonesian government’s decision to speed up the tax plan is attributable to the country’s growing diabetes prevalence, which has heavilyburdened the state budget.

In 2019, BPJS Kesehatan spent 108 trillion rupiah on diabetestreatments, a 29% increase compared to 84 trillion rupiah spent in 2017./.

VNA