Consumption Tax to be Removed from certain Food Items

~~Adz:Left~~Basseterre, St. Kitts- AS the government continues to address the issue of the increasing cost of living, Cabinet announced that effective May 1st, consumption tax will be removed from certain basic food and non-food items.

These items include chicken, processed cheese, pasta, corned beef, sardines, tinned tuna, Vienna sausage, margarine, ketchup, adult and baby diapers and baby formula. The consumption tax on these items ranges from 15% to 22.5%.

Cabinet continues to discuss the increasing price of fuel and the impact that this phenomenon is having on the overall cost of living noting that the price of a barrel of oil on the international market had increased to over US$117.

The recently implemented price control policy will be monitored by the newly employed price control officers in the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Consumer Affairs to ensure that the prices of these items decrease as expected for the benefit of consumers. The policy will be reviewed at the end of the year 2008.

Cabinet is also reviewing the implementation date of the Common External Tariff, which amounts to about a 5% tax imposed on a limited number of goods entering the Federation. Cabinet believes that it is more helpful to consumers to fast-track the implementation of the removal of the higher consumption tax rather than the CET.