Tax hikes urged

Anti-tobacco activists in Bangladesh are demanding that the government increase the tax on tobacco products in its proposed national budget for fiscal year 2018-2019, reports The Daily Star.
They also demanded the restructuring of the four-level price slab for cigarettes into two levels.
The tobacco tax structure, as proposed, serves merely to protect the tobacco business, according to Nadira Kiron, a representative of Anti-Tobacco Media Alliance (ATMA).
By keeping the value slabs of cigarettes at four levels, the price and tax of high-priced cigarettes unchanged for three consecutive fiscal years, the government is facilitating the business expansion of the multinational tobacco companies, she alleged.
The anti-tobacco activists proposed breaking the four-segment price slabs for cigarettes into just two segments of high and low.
Their other recommendations include:

• Abolishing the filter and non-filter differentiation for bidi cigarettes and fixing the price of 30 sticks at a minimum of BDT30 ($0.36) with a 45 percent supplementary duty and BDT6 specific tax.
• Slapping 45 percent supplementary duty instead of 65 percent and BDT10 specific tax for each 10 grams of smoke free tobacco products.
• Re-imposing the 25 percent tax on exporting processed and unprocessed tobacco products and a 10 percent supplementary duty at local level to discourage tobacco cultivation.