Budget 2023: Cigarettes to get costlier and Twitter is blowing up with memes

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced a hike in taxes on cigarettes in the Union Budget on Wednesday. In her Budget speech in Parliament, Nirmala Sitharaman said the government has decided to increase NCCD (National Calamity Contingent Duty) on certain cigarettes by 16 percent, effectively making them more expensive. There had been no change in cigarette taxation for the last two years.

Any hope that people had for a reduction in cigarette prices, or even of maintaining the status quo, went up in smoke after the finance minister’s announcement.

Social media was pretty soon inundated with memes on costlier cigarettes even as the stock price of cigarette manufacturers fell dramatically after the Budget announcement. Take a look at some of the memes and jokes:

Cigarette stocks, including ITC, nosedived sharply on Budget day. ITC shares corrected sharply by 6 percent during the day but later recovered to trade with 0.6 percent losses at Rs 351. ITC’s dilemma was memorialised in memes:

The Union Budget 2023 outlined the government’s seven main priorities: inclusive development, infrastructure and investment, reaching the last mile, unleashing the potential, green growth, youth power, financial sector.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman also tweaked tax slabs to provide some relief to the middle class. She announced that no tax would be levied on annual income of up to Rs 7 lakh under the new tax regime.