Raise tobacco taxes to global levels: Report
New Delhi, Apr 8,2010 (PTI) The government should raise taxes on cigarettes and bidis to internationally recommended levels, a move that would save millions of lives and generate more than Rs 18,000 crore in revenues, a report said today.
Tax on cigarettes accounts for less than 40 per cent of the retail price of a package only today, which is far below the World Health Organisation recommended levels of 65-80 per cent, it said.
"Raising cigarette tax to 78 per cent of the retail price could avert 3.4 million premature tobacco-related deaths and raise about Rs 14,630 crore in new revenues for government each year," National Institute of Public finance and Policy (NIPFP) director M Govinda Rao said here today, while releasing the report on the 'Economics of tobacco and tobacco taxation in India,' prepared jointly by the NIPFP and the Centre for Global Health Research.
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