"Chulaphan" promotes the project "1 Community 1 Excise Department Champion" to drive ESG, pair local foods, support Soft Power, and amend the law to upgrade community liquor. Mr. Chulaphan Amornvivat, Deputy Minister of Finance, presided over the award ceremony of the '1 Community 1 Excise Champion' project to support the driving of the community economy with excise tax, along with the development and improvement of the quality of community liquor to international standards, acceptable to consumers, increasing competitiveness, and promoting communities and entrepreneurs to access sources of capital. After the Excise Department reduced taxes and opened up the production of community liquor, allowing increased production capacity, it will be considered a significant expansion, generating 16 percent more tax revenue for the state per year, or approximately 1,267 million baht, from more than 2,000 community enterprise groups and villagers. The Ministry of Finance therefore divides community liquor producers in to 3 groups: 1. Community enterprise groups, small producers of 'community distilled liquor', small factories with a production capacity of no more than 5 horsepower and no more than 7 people, with production supervision to meet standards and be safe for consumers. 2. 'Medium-sized factories' with a production capacity of no more than 50 horsepower and no more than 50 people to distribute products throughout the country to important tourist attractions. 3. Large entrepreneurs must promote production for export to compete abroad and maintain it as strong as community liquor in Japan, which is very popular with tourists from many countries. Mr. Chulaphan is ready to move forward with drafting or amending the new Excise Act to promote community liquor to grow and become stronger, opening the way for community enterprise groups to advertise and market more, because large producers use the advertising format of drinking water instead of beer and large famous liquor brands to support the government's soft power po licy to connect with food and community tourism by cooperating with many agencies after seeing the potential of the villagers' groups to produce community liquor that meets the standards and has grown to the present. However, they must strictly control production standards to prevent lessons from the cluster of herbal liquor mixed with methanol. Dr. Ekniti Nitithanprapas, Director-General of the Excise Department, said that to promote the country's soft power in upgrading OTOP products to meet the needs of consumers around the world with local liquor, the Excise Department has continuously unlocked various laws in accordance with government policy. It has adjusted the tax rate of local liquors, such as U, Krachae, Sato, from the value-based tax from the original 10% to 0% in order to reduce costs for the community, resulting in an increase in the tax amount from local liquors. Currently, there are 2,064 community liquor entrepreneurs, divided into 262 small-scale chilled liquor entrepreneurs, 5 medium-scale entrepreneurs, 1,772 small-scale distilled community liquor entrepreneurs, and 25 medium-scale entrepreneurs. The Excise Department has community distilled liquor tax revenue in the fiscal year 2024, increasing by 2.67 percent over the 11 months. Community chilled liquor tax increased by 16.58 percent. For the overall tax collection system, 482 billion baht was collected, 10.6 percent higher than the target. It is believed that the remaining 1 month will exceed the target of 520 billion baht. It is admitted that taxes from cars and oil have decreased significantly due to the shrinking purchasing power of cars and the policy of subsidizing oil prices in the past. Source: Thai News Agency