Staff Reporter :
Right bodies have recommended that the National Board of Revenue should increase taxes on tobacco products and increase of prices of the products in the national budget for the upcoming fiscal year 2020-2021.
They also urged to set the minimum retail price for 10 sticks at Tk 47 for the sake of public health protection and to reduce the existing 4-tier system (low, medium, high, premium) of cigarette tax structure to 3-tier system (low, high, premium) immediately.
The anti-tobacco campaigners— Bangladesh Anti-Tobacco Alliance (BATA), Alliance for FCTC Implementation and Anti-Smoke Council Manabik, made the call in a statement.
The anti-tobacco organisations also demanded that specific taxes and a two-tier pricing system should be introduced in the next budget for cigarettes.
Implementation of the proposals will bring in additional revenues worth Tk 10,000 crore for the government which may come in handy to recover from the coronavirus-related losses, it said.
It also said that, implementation of the proposals would prevent six million premature deaths.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has recently said that lungs exposed to direct and indirect tobacco smoke were at greater risks of being infected with the coronavirus.
In Bangladesh, 37.8 million adults use tobacco and 41 million people fall victim to second-hand smoke in their own homes. Under the circumstance, the number of price slabs should be brought down to three (low, high, premium) from the existing four slabs.
The Revenue Board should set the minimum retail price for 10 sticks of cigarettes at Tk 47.
In addition to the current proposals, the anti-tobacco body urged that all tobacco products should continue to be subject to 15-per cent value-added tax.
