Photo credit: Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance (SEATCA)
CAPETOWN / BANGKOK, Aug 02 (IPS) – The COVID-19 pandemic has claimed millions of families and damaged the economies of countries around the world.
Rich countries with higher vaccination rates opened their economies to poor countries still struggling to fight the pandemic.
However, there is a simple recipe to improve population health and increase revenue to pay for vaccines and economic recovery. This simple recipe only requires one ingredient – the implementation of an evidence-based tobacco tax policy.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), tax and pricing measures are the most effective way to reduce the demand for tobacco, which in turn will save lives, reduce government spending on health care and increase tax revenues.
Smoking is now a recognized risk factor for severe COVID-19 courses. As a result, countries with high smoking prevalence such as Indonesia and Vietnam are quite vulnerable during the pandemic.
Many low and middle income countries (LMICs) are struggling to reduce their persistently high tobacco use while spending a significant portion of their health budgets on tobacco-related diseases.
These avoidable expenditures as well as pandemic-related expenditures put the finance ministries in a dilemma.
ASEAN countries are lagging behind in using tobacco taxes to curb tobacco use, although some countries like the Philippines have made significant strides in recent years.
Most ASEAN countries lack a long-term tax plan and do not review or update their policies in line with their tax or public health goals. The main obstacles to effective tobacco tax policies include complex tax structures, small tax changes that do not reduce the affordability of tobacco, and weak tax administration.
Photo credit: Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance (SEATCA)
These obstacles are perpetuated by interference from the tobacco industry. Transnational tobacco companies routinely target LMICs to grow their profits and have made special efforts to ensure their customers keep smoking during the pandemic.
In the ASEAN region, home to 122 million smokers, the tobacco industry thwarts tax increases to keep cigarette prices down, delays tax payments, offers promotions to customers, and makes charitable donations to resource-hungry governments for political favors to achieve.
A 2020 survey by the Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance (SEATCA) in seven countries (Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos DPR, Myanmar, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam) found that tobacco industry interference is one of the main obstacles to generating higher excise tax revenues through the region.
The industry publishes exaggerated illegal trade data, falsely predicts economic disasters, and seeks high-profile allies to prevent tax hikes. Policy makers and politicians need to be aware of these industry efforts and protect the public interest from industrial interference.
A recent SEATCA study in four ASEAN countries (Cambodia, Indonesia, Myanmar and Vietnam) found that governments are failing to simplify complex tax structures and / or by failing to raise tobacco taxes to the recommended level, and / or a significant portion of tobacco tax revenues Abolish tax breaks for tobacco companies.
The study highlighted that if governments had implemented effective tobacco tax policies, 1.3 million premature deaths could have been prevented and an additional $ 4.81 billion in tax revenues in the past two years.
Laos is also missing tax revenue due to an unfair joint venture between the government and cigarette makers that resulted in tobacco companies failing to pay their fair share of taxes and refusing to make their mandatory contribution to the Tobacco Control Fund (TCF). founded seven years ago.
As a result, the Lao government lost excise tax revenues of over US $ 142.9 million between 2002 and 2019 and TCF revenues of US $ 18 million between 2014 and 2019.
Tobacco tax policy is an inexpensive tool that governments can use to generate sustainable revenues for health and social development. This could go a long way towards paying for vaccinations and therapeutics in the fight against COVID-19 during the pandemic.
LMICs seeking revenue to offset their pandemic financial and economic losses should prioritize tobacco tax policy as a public health intervention as it can save lives as well as generate significant revenue.
Dr. Hana Ross is Principal Research Officer of Research on Economics for Excisable Products (REEP) at the University of Cape Town, South Africa & Sophapan Ratanachena-McWhortor is the Tobacco Tax Program Manager for SEATCA
Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
Follow IPS New UN Bureau on Instagram
© Inter Press Service (2021) – All rights reserved Original source: Inter Press Service
Where to go next
Similar news
Browse related news topics:
Latest news
Read the latest news:
- Boosting Revenue and Protecting Public Health During the COVID-19 Pandemic Monday, August 02, 2021
- After slandering the UN, the US returns to the world body Monday, August 02, 2021
- WTO nears agreement on harmful fisheries subsidies Monday, August 02, 2021
- Lace up and join the UN to win #TheHumanRace against climate change Monday, August 02, 2021
- A year after the explosions in Beirut: a blog by the UN resident coordinator Saturday 31 July 2021
- Olympic athletes describe the power of sport to change the world Saturday 31 July 2021
- Sink or swim: can island states survive the climate crisis? Friday July 30th 2021
- Six months after the coup, Myanmar’s political, legal and aid crisis intensifies Friday July 30th 2021
- If Branded a Born Criminal: The Plight of the De-Notified Tribes of India Friday July 30th 2021
- Afghanistan: Attack on UN mission leads to global condemnation Friday July 30th 2021
Detailed
Learn more about the issues involved:
Share that
Bookmark or share using some popular social bookmarking websites:
Link to this page from your website / blog
Add the following HTML to your page:
Boosting Revenue and Protecting Public Health During the COVID-19 Pandemic, Interpress service, Monday August 2nd, 2021 (posted by Global Issues)
… to produce this:
Boosting Revenue and Protecting Public Health During COVID-19 Pandemic, Inter Press Service, Monday August 02, 2021 (posted by Global Issues)