Brussels proposes EU tax hike on cigarettes

The European Commission has suggested that the EU's current minimum excise duties on cigarettes and tobacco should be increased to reflect inflation, in a move aimed at helping to cut consumption as well as narrow price differences across the bloc's 27 member states.

"Substantial differences in tax and price levels of tobacco products lead to considerable cross-border shopping and intra-community smuggling," EU tax commissioner Laszlo Kovacs told journalists as he was introducing the pr...