Research

Cigarette Tax Scorecard

The Tobacconomics Cigarette Tax Scorecard was written by Frank J. Chaloupka, Jeffrey Drope, Erika Siu, Violeta Vulovic, Michal Stoklosa, Maryam Mirza, German Rodriguez-Iglesias, and Hye Myung Lee. The Scorecard assesses the performance of cigarette tax policies in over 170 countries. It uses data from the WHO Global Tobacco Control Reports to score countries on a five-point scale, thus providing policy makers with an actionable assessment. There are four scoring components used: the cigarette price, changes in affordability, the tax share of the price, and the tax structure used. Each country receives a score for each component, in addition to an overall score. The Scorecard shows that, overall, countries are failing to effectively tax cigarettes. As governments face the combined public health and economic crises caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, reforming cigarette tax policies provides a logical first step in raising much needed revenue. 

[BAHASA]

[PORTUGUESE]

[SPANISH]

[VIETNAMESE]

Access the entire Data set with the country scores here.

View the most recent Scorecard here.

December 2020

Location(s): Global

Content Type: Data set, Report

Topic(s): Tax and price, Tax levels and structure

Authors(s): Frank J. Chaloupka, Ph.D., Jeffrey Drope, Ph.D., Violeta Vulovic, Ph.D., Michal Stoklosa, Ph.D., Maryam Mirza, Ph.D., Germán Rodriguez-Iglesias, MSc, Hye Myung Lee, Ph.D.

Citation