Firm joins beer tax protest

Firm joins beer tax protest

AMSTERDAM (Reuter): Brewer Heineken said its Indonesian subsidiary had halted beer distribution to the tourist island of Bali, joining an industry-wide protest at the way local excise duties were implemented.

"We are not objecting to the payment of excise duties -- that's the law," a Heineken spokesman said. "But Multi Bintang is not prepared to pay twice as much again to the private company executing the levies for stickers to show the beer is duty-paid."

Multi Bintang Indonesia is 77 percent-owned by Heineken and controls more than half of the Indonesian beer market, where its Bintang brand is dominant.

Arbamas, the private company operating the contract to collect duties and issue the required stickers, was charging Rp 400 on top of the Rp 200 duty, Indonesian brewers complained.

The Jakarta-based Beverage Industry Association, of which Multi Bintang is a member, said in a statement Indonesia's second-largest brewer Delta and local operator Balihai had also halted distribution to Bali.