{"id":152133,"date":"2021-12-09T20:38:17","date_gmt":"2021-12-09T15:08:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=152133"},"modified":"2021-12-09T20:38:17","modified_gmt":"2021-12-09T15:08:17","slug":"low-tobacco-tax-poor-health","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/low-tobacco-tax-poor-health\/","title":{"rendered":"Low tobacco tax, poor health"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

News:\u00a0<\/strong>The absence of an increase in tax on tobacco products post-GST has impacted revenue and could worsen public health<\/p>\n

What is the status of tobacco consumption in India?<\/strong><\/h5>\n

India is the second-largest consumer of tobacco in the world, with 28.6% of adults above 15 years and 8.5% of students aged 13-15 years use tobacco in some form or the other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Read here:\u00a0\u201cWorld No Tobacco Day\u201d and \u201cTobacco Consumption\u201d in India<\/a><\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
How is the government dealing with tobacco and associated products?<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Since the introduction of GST, the government has not increased taxation of tobacco products to discourage their consumption. There was only a small increase in the National Calamity Contingent Duty (NCCD)<\/strong>, which only increases the average price of cigarettes by about 5%. There is a 3% real decline in GST revenues from tobacco products in the past two financial years. This lack of increase in tax offers more benefits to tobacco-based industries and less to the government.<\/p>\n

Before the GST, excise duty and VAT were regularly raised on tobacco products. Because of these policies, there was a reduction of 17.3% in tobacco use among adults in India between 2009-10 and 2016-17, as identified by the Global Adult Tobacco Survey.<\/strong><\/p>\n

How does the lack of tax increase impact health targets and government revenue?<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Health:\u00a0<\/strong>World Health Organization recommended a uniform tax burden of at least 75% for each tobacco product. But, the tax burden in India on bidis, cigarettes, and smokeless tobacco, on average, stands at 22%, 53%, and 64% in 2021. It might bring some current smokers to smoke more now and some non-smokers to start smoking. This might jeopardize India\u2019s commitment to achieving 30% tobacco use prevalence reduction by 2025 as envisaged in the National Health Policy of 2017.<\/p>\n

Revenue:\u00a0<\/strong>Excise duty on tobacco is very low in India. The share of central excise duties including NCCD in the total tobacco taxes decreased from 54% to 8% for cigarettes, 17% to 1% for bidis, and 59% to 11% for smokeless tobacco products, on average, from 2017 (pre-GST) to 2021 (post-GST).<\/p>\n

What should the government do?<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Government should increase the excise tax of at least \u20b91 per stick of bidis while aiming for a significant increase in the excise tax of cigarettes and smokeless tobacco products.<\/p>\n

An increase in taxation can affect the affordability of tobacco products, which further led to reduced tobacco use prevalence. It will further help India to achieve sustainable development goals.<\/p>\n

Source:\u00a0<\/strong>This post is based on the article “Low tobacco tax, poor health”\u00a0<\/strong>published in The Hindu<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong>on\u00a09th December 2021.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

News:\u00a0The absence of an increase in tax on tobacco products post-GST has impacted revenue and could worsen public health What is the status of tobacco consumption in India? India is the second-largest consumer of tobacco in the world, with 28.6% of adults above 15 years and 8.5% of students aged 13-15 years use tobacco in… Continue reading Low tobacco tax, poor health<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5480,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[212,10498],"class_list":["post-152133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-gs-paper-2","tag-the-hindu","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704910568},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5480"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152133"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152133\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}