The planned three-step increase of the excise tax on cigarettes and tobacco was cancelled by a last minute modification to the bill in Parliament on Tuesday.

Parliament approved last-minute changes to amendments that will postpone an earlier planned rise in the excise tax on cigarettes but raise the scale of an increase of the tax on E85 ethanol fuel blend instead of lowering it, reports the Budabest Business Journal.
Parliament's Constitutional Affairs Committee tabled the postponement of the higher excise tax on cigarettes, arguing that conditions had to be established for the same taxation of products that are equally harmful to health.
Under the original amendment, the excise tax on cigarettes was to increase in three steps – this year, at the beginning of next year and in the middle of next year – from HUF 18,080 at (EUR 67.30) at present to HUF 19,400 per thousand cigarettes from 1 July 2012.
MPs approved the changes with a vote of 251 for and 90 against. (pi)