BD still lags far behind in tobacco tax reform

Bangladesh is still lagging far behind the top-performing countries in the Tobacconomics Cigarette Tax Scorecard, said a study.
In 2021, Bangladesh scored of 2.63 on a scale of 5.
The study report shows an ample opportunity for Bangladesh to improve its performance by increasing the prices of cigarettes, increasing the tax on price, and improving the existing tobacco tax structure.
The Cigarette Tax Scorecard, an initiative of the Tobacconomics programme of the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC), assesses the performance of cigarette tax policies in 160 countries.
The findings of the Bangladesh part of this year's report were unveiled on Wednesday in a virtual event, organised by research and anti-tobacco advocacy organisation PROGGA (Knowledge for Progress) with support from Campaign for Tobacco-free Kids (CTFK).
The report focuses on four key dimensions of cigarette tax systems including cigarette prices, changes in cigarette affordability over time, share of taxes in retail cigarette prices and cigarette tax structure.
While the latest scorecard shows Bangladesh performing better in 2020 (score 2.63) than it did in 2018 (score 2.38), the country has seen virtually no progress in cigarette prices and tax structure reform since then.
Bangladesh has scored only 1 (one) in both of these two cases. The flawed multi-tiered ad valorem tax structure and low base prices of cigarettes have prevented Bangladesh from emerging as a top-performing country on the scorecard.
As the chief guest of the event, economist and convener of the National Anti-Tobacco Platform, Dr. Qazi Kholiquzzaman Ahmad appreciated the study findings that can help our policymakers to adopt effective tobacco tax policies.

doulot_akter@yahoo.com