Cabinet extends diesel excise cut for four more months to control cost of living
The Cabinet on Tuesday extended the diesel excise relief of 5 baht per litre for four more months, Deputy Finance Minister Santi Promphat said.
Speaking to reporters after the weekly Cabinet meeting, Santi said the Cabinet reached the resolution to extend the cut from January for four more months to help reduce the cost of living and to prevent consumer product prices from rising.
The latest round of diesel excise cut would cost the Excise Department around 40 billion baht in lost revenue, or about 10 billion baht a month.
The latest round is the sixth one since February last year. Combined with revenue loss in the latest round, the government would lose about 140 billion to 150 billion baht in diesel excise revenue.
Santi said the cut would not affect the financial situation of the government as it had received an extra 33 billion baht income from the auction of mobile phone and radio bandwidths as well as tax fines on imported goods following court rulings. He did not elaborate.
Santi added that revenue received by the Finance Ministry during the first two months of fiscal 2023 was 55 billion baht higher than the target and the ministry was confident of receiving 2.6 trillion baht in revenue at the end of the fiscal year in September.
“For fiscal 2023, the government would borrow about 695 billion baht to offset the budget deficit while the projected spending would be 3.1 trillion. It is expected that at the end of the fiscal year, there would be a cash balance of 710 billion baht with the treasury,” Santi said.
“So, the government’s financial status is stable and it would not be affected by the excise cut,” he reiterated.
