Raise taxes on tobacco products

Anti-tobacco campaigners yesterday demanded that the government increase tax on tobacco products in the national budget for the fiscal 2018-19, aiming for a tobacco-free nation in future.

They proposed restructuring the present four-tier price slabs for cigarettes into two tiers, imposing supplementary duty and introducing specific tax on cigarettes.

They raised the demands during a press briefing at Jatiya Press Club, Dhaka. 

Eight anti-tobacco organisations and platforms -- Progga, Anti Tobacco Media Alliance (ATMA), National Heart Foundation, Dhaka Ahsania Mission, Association for Community Development (ACD), Young Power in Social Action, National Anti-Tobacco Platform (NATP), and Anti Tobacco Women's Alliance -- arranged the briefing as part of their reaction to the proposed budget.

The proposed tax structure for tobacco products in the national budget for 2018-19 is to protect tobacco businesses, said Nadira Kiron, co-convener of ATMA, while reading out a keynote paper.

She said the government kept the value slabs of cigarettes at four tiers, and the price of and tax on high-priced cigarettes unchanged for three consecutive fiscal years, which is facilitating business expansion of multinational tobacco companies.

Noted economist and NATP Chairman Dr Qazi Kholiquzzaman Ahmad said the government has certain commitments to turn the country tobacco-free by 2040.

“The finance minister in his budget speech talked a lot about tobacco control but it reflected little in the proposal,” he said.

Prof Sohel Reza Choudhury, head of the department of Epidemiology and Research, National Heart Foundation Hospital and Research Institute, said youths are opting for e-cigarettes as an alternative but those can be harmful as they too contain nicotine.

In-depth research on e-cigarettes is required to determine their bad effects, he said.

THE PROPOSALS

The anti-tobacco campaigners demanded for merger of the existing "low" and "medium" tiers into low tier and "high" and "premium" tiers into high tier for price slab, urging to set the minimum price for the low tier at Tk 50 per 10 sticks with raising supplementary tax to 60 percent.

For high tier, minimum price should be Tk 100 per 10 sticks with 65 percent supplementary tax. There should be “specific tax” of Tk 5 per 10 sticks for all cigarettes, they said.

They demanded for elimination of the distinction between filtered and non-filtered bidis and setting the minimum price at Tk 30 per pack of 25 sticks with imposing 45 percent supplementary duty and adding specific tax of Tk 6 per pack of 25 sticks.

Forty-five percent supplementary duty should be imposed and a specific tax of Tk 10 on per 10 gram of smokeless tobacco products should be added instead of the proposed 65 percent supplementary duty, they said.

The 25 percent export duty on processed and unprocessed tobacco should be reinstated and a 10 percent supplementary duty should be imposed at the local level to discourage tobacco cultivation, they added.