10 Pct. of Special Consumers Tax for 10 Seat Vans

10 percent special consumers tax will be imposed to the mini vans that hold up to 10 seats as well, such as Carnival, Traget XG, Starex, from January 2003. And hotels and bars are allowed to sell beers brewed from the local shops from January next year. The Ministry of Finance and Economy (MFE) decided the revised the bill including such revision of the indirect tax laws.

According to the revised bill, the objects of the tax imposition is expanded from `up to 8 seats` to `up to 10 seats` and will impose 10 percent special consumers tax to the vans with 9-10 seats, whose import or sales are reported from January 2003.

Park Yong-Man, an MFE official, said that "the auto price may rise by 1.5 – 2.4 million won due to the additional 14.3 percent tax charges including the special consumers tax, education tax (3 percent), and value added tax (1.3 percent)."

However, power-saving heaters, small heaters, boats and yachts made of rubber and plastics will be excluded from the imposition of the special consumer tax.

The mixing of harmless sweet materials such as green tea and xylitol into Soju is allowed. Consequently, `San` (Mountain) produced by Doosan, which is currently classified as `general distilled liquor` will be acknowledged as Soju and more diverse developments of Soju with various tastes are expected. In addition, `small beer brewing certificate` that allowed to brew up to 300 kl of beer per year will be introduced from next year.

In addition, 10 percent of the value added tax will be imposed to the bill of the Satellite broadcasts, Cable networks, local cable broadcasts from July next year (January for Satellite broadcasts), anticipating the rise of the bills.

Joong-Hyun Park sanjuck@donga.com