Bangladesh Tobacco Tax Proposal 2019-20

The most effective way to reduce tobacco use is to raise the prices of tobacco products through tax increases that lower their affordability. Higher prices discourage youth from initiating tobacco use and encourage current users to quit.

If the Government of Bangladesh reforms the current tobacco tax system following the recommendations for FY 2019-2020 proposed in Table 1 to 3 below, it would:

• Encourage nearly 3.2 million current adult smokers to quit (1.3 million cigarettes smokers and 1.9 million biri smokers);
• Reduce the prevalence of cigarette smoking from 14.0% to around 12.5% and the prevalence of biri smoking from 5.0 to 3.4%;
• Reduce premature deaths by 1 million among current smokers in the long term (0.46 million cigarette smokers and 0.53 million biri smokers); and
• Generate between BDT 66.8 billion and 119.8 billion (up to 0.4 % of GDP) in additional tax revenue. This additional revenue would be equivalent to almost 15% of the public resources currently destined to health[i] and could be used to fund programs to reduce the harms of tobacco use, prevent premature deaths and promote healthy lives.

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Bangladesh Tobacco Tax Proposal 2019-20