The government’s revenue from the tobacco sector has increased 11 and a half times in the last 18 years while the rate of tobacco use has decreased as a result of enactment of the ‘Smoking and Using of Tobacco Products (Control) Act, 2005’.
Experts on tobacco control and public health have said that it proves that enactment of legislation not only reduces tobacco consumption in the country but increases the tax as well as government revenue. The amendment to the tobacco control law in 2013 played a vital role in increasing revenue income. On the other hand, from 2009 and 2017, tobacco use in the country decreased by about 18 per cent.
They opined that further strengthening the tobacco control law and another amendment to the law will play a significant role in protecting public health, reducing tobacco use and increasing government revenue.
The tobacco control advocates were speaking at a views-exchange meeting at Gulshan in the capital on Sunday (November 3, 2024). The Bureau of Economic Research (BER) of Dhaka University and the Bangladesh Network for Tobacco Tax Policy (BNTTP) jointly arranged the event titled ‘Strengthening Tobacco Control Law Increases Revenue and Reduces Consumption’.
Dr Rumana Huque, focal person of BER and a professor of Economics department at Dhaka University; presided over the event, while Hamidul Islam Hillol, project manager of BER; presented the keynote paper and Ibrahim Khalil, project officer of BER; moderated the programme.
Professor Dr. Golam Mohiuddin Faruque, president of Bangladesh Cancer Society; attended the event as the chief guest, while it was addressed, among others, by Advocate Syed Mahbubul Alam Tahin, senior technical consultant at Vital Strategies; Helal Ahmed, acting coordinator of Bangladesh Anti-Tobacco Alliance (BATA); Nikhil Bhadra, special correspondent at Daily Kaler Kantha; Sushant Sinha, special correspondent at Ekattar Television; Masum Billah, joint editor of Daily Share Biz.
Speakers at the views-exchange meeting said that tobacco companies are carrying out campaign that the government’s revenue will decrease if the tobacco control law is strengthened. Their argument is not logical. The revenue collection data of National Board of Revenue (NBR) shows how much they are lying.
According to them, when the tobacco control law was enacted in Bangladesh in 2005, the revenue from tobacco was Tk 2,888 crore. In the next fiscal year 2005-06, the revenue collection from tobacco sector was 3, 351 crore. When the law was amended in 2013, the government’s revenue from tobacco was Tk 10,170 crore that year. In the financial year 2013-14 it was 12,556 crore. In the fiscal year 2022-23, the total revenue collection from the tobacco sector is 32,823 crore.
