Cabinet decides to raise consumer tax on cigarettes

Consumer tax on cigarettes will be raised significantly in April next year, the Czech cabinet decided on Monday. A pack of cigarettes is to cost six crowns more in 2005 and an additional seven crowns in 2006. Economists have estimated that a family in which each parent smokes a pack a day, would find itself spending some 9,500 crowns - or over 350 US dollars - more a year on cigarettes.