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5,000 paid up for cigarettes

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Home > Breaking News > Singapore > Story
Feb 16, 2009
5,000 paid up for cigarettes <!--10 min-->
<!-- headline one : start --> <!-- headline one : end --> <!-- Author --> <!-- show image if available --> <table width="100%" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"> <tbody><tr></tr> <tr> </tr> <tr> </tr> <tr><td colspan="2" class="padlrt8 georgia11 darkgrey bold">By Jermyn Chow

</td></tr> </tbody></table> <!-- START OF : div id="storytext"--> FIVE thousand people who arrived at Singapore's checkpoints last month declared and paid taxes for unlabelled cigarettes they had with them, after a new law requiring every cigarette stick be branded with a mark kicked in on January 1. About $200,000 worth of duty and GST was collected from the inbound travellers who declared their smokes to customs officers at the Tuas and Woodlands checkpoints, two ferry terminals and Changi Airport. Four in 10 were Singaporeans.

Most travellers at the checkpoints were taxed for one or two packs of cigarettes, though some arriving by air carted in two cartons that contain about 24 packs. Last year, immigration officers logged about 1,600 cases of people trying to sneak in contraband cigarettes through the checkpoints a month. They include smugglers and inbound travellers who bring in one or two packs. The 'SDPC' mark -which stands for 'Singapore Duty Paid Cigarettes' - distinguishes duty-paid packs from contraband smokes. The mark near the filter end is meant to prevent smokers from passing off contraband cigarettes as the real deal by hiding their illegal sticks inside legitimate cigarette packs. In January, customs officers netted more than 570 smokers across the island for puffing on unpaid-duty cigarettes. They were fined a minimum of $500 for every pack found on them.

Read the full report in Tuesday's edition of The Straits Times.


 
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