Staff Reporter:Government can earn easily TK Tk 3,400 crore hiking tax on tobacco products in the upcoming budget for the FY 2021-22 of the country.
Speakers of a workshop organized virtually in Dhaka on Tuesday said it. PROGGA, a knowledge based campaign, organized it.
Speakers on the workshop said, the government would generate nearly BDT 3,400 crore in additional tax revenues from Supplementary Duty, Health Development Surcharge and VAT on top of the collection for FY 2020-2021, that is an increase by 12 pc of current tax revenue from cigarettes in the first year.
They said reforming the current tobacco tax system it would achieve reduce the prevalence of cigarette smoking from 15.1 pc to 14.1.
It would encourage nearly 1.1 million adults to refrain from smoking and deter more than 800,000 youth from smoking initiation.
As a result, it would save the lives of nearly 390,000 current adults and more than 400,000 current youth from premature deaths in the long term.
Meanwhile, increasing prices of bidi and Smoke Less Tobaccos will discourage the use of such products among the low-income people and significantly increase the revenues for the government.
Mostafizur Rahman, Lead Policy Advisor of the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids (CTFK), Dr. Syed Mahfuzul Haque, National Professional Officer of the World Health Organization Bangladesh, ABM Jubayer, PROGGA Executive Director and Hasan Shahriar, PROGGA Head of Program was among others, in the programme.
It also asked for simplify the tobacco tax system by gradually eliminating distinctions between different tobacco products and bring all types of smokeless tobacco products under the government’s tax net.
