Media advocacy for building support for taxation of all tobacco products at the highest rate under the new Goods & Service Tax (GST) regime
More details
Hide details
1
Voluntary Health Association of India, India
Publication date: 2018-03-01
Tob. Induc. Dis. 2018;16(Suppl 1):A689
Download abstract book (PDF)
KEYWORDS
TOPICS
ABSTRACT
Background and challenges to implementation:
Article 6 of the FCTC enlists price and tax measures as
an essential strategy for reducing demand for tobacco products. Raising taxes
on tobacco is the single most effective way to encourage tobacco users to quit
and prevent youth from starting tobacco use.
Goods and Services Tax (GST) is a new system
of taxation in India aims to streamline the taxation structure in the country
and replace the complete range of indirect taxes with a singular GST to
simplify the taxation procedure. Tobacco
products should be subjected to the highest level of tax under GST (28% + cess)
with no segmentation.
Intervention or response:
VHAI engaged the media through press
releases, Op-eds and keeping the media updated with the developments happening
at policy level. One to one interactions were held with the journalists
covering health and financial news. Social media was used as a tool for
outreach through twitter and Facebook.
Results and lessons learnt:
Over 563 earned media stories on GST
generated by VHAI during the period from March 2016 - June 2017. Timely Op-Eds
in key national dailies on tobacco taxation, media outreach nationwide for
higher taxes and cess on tobacco covered in all the national dailies and 13
vernaculars. As a result, tobacco is taxed at the highest demerit rate of 28% +
Cess.
Conclusions and key recommendations:
Keeping the tobacco
products at the highest GST rate - 28 percent plus higher cess will have a
major impact on the prices of the tobacco products which will encourage users
to quit and youth from taking up this habit.