SEOUL, Sept. 14 (Korea Bizwire) – A collective of convenience store owners will file a class action lawsuit against the government to demand the repayment of five years’ worth of credit card fees on cigarettes and plastic bag sales. The collective’s leader, Kye Sang Hyuk, shared with media outlets on September 14 that preliminary discussions [...]
SEJONG, March 15 (Korea Bizwire) – A recent study suggests that the South Korean government’s anti-smoking policies may need to be supplemented by diet and weight loss programs to better control weight gain, which sometimes follows smoking cessation. Researcher Choi Seng-eun at the Korea Institute of Public Finance, in a report on the effects of [...]
SEOUL, Jan. 31 (Korea Bizwire) – It has been two years since the Korean government raised its tobacco tax by 80 percent. Whether it helped to promote public health and bring down the smoking rate is still open to debate, but it was undoubtedly a lucrative decision for both the government and cigarette companies, especially [...]
SEJONG, Sept. 20 (Korea Bizwire) – Cigarette taxes have long been used to discourage citizens from smoking and bolster government coffers. Either way, they’re usually a win-win strategy for both parties. The Korean government raised its cigarette taxes in 2015 by almost doubling the price of cigarettes from 2,500 or 2,700 won ($2.23) per pack [...]
SEJONG, June 17 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s cigarette tax revenue jumped in the first five months of 2015 from a year earlier due mainly to a tax hike, government data showed Wednesday. Starting this year, the tax levied on a pack of cigarettes rose by 2,000 won (US$1.79), raising the average price per pack [...]