Shocking from Syria:
Syria’s government has brought in a new tax on shawarma sandwiches and a raft of other levies on everyday life as it struggles to fill its coffers more than four years into a grinding civil war.
The shawarma, a popular Middle Eastern dish of grilled spiced meat cut into thin slices, exemplifies how the government’s drive for revenues has spread into all corners of the economy. The currency has plunged and revenues have slowed to a trickle, particularly as the government has come under sanctions preventing exports and lost control of much of the country’s oil and gas resources.
“Last week I had to pay 220 Syrian pounds (US$1) for my shawarma sandwich instead of 200 and the restaurant owner told me it was because there’s a new 10% ‘reconstruction tax’ that’s being imposed on each sandwich,” 50-year-old Damascus resident Tahseen told Agence France-Presse.
So, what war was Lawson trying to fund when he started to tax takeaway kebabs then?
We eat doner kebabs when we’re pissed, what excuse do Syrians have?
War on obesity?
So many things have had war declared on them in the last few years, shooting wars like Syria are a mere sideshow.
Don’t you mean Nigella?
Taxing a odourless, tasteless, non-corrosive, non-toxic, invisible, trace gas essential for all organic life on the Planet in order to stop the Sun shining so brightly and to make the tides go back makes much more sense.