The Philippines is the most taxed country for tobacco products in Asia, according to data cited in a study released by Stratbase ADRI Research in June 2022.
The country’s overall score in the Tobacconomics Cigarette Taxation 2020 Scorecard is 3.63, making it the highest in the region. The Philippines also landed in the top 20 among 160 countries and jurisdictions covered by the study.
The Tobacco Cigarette Tax Scorecard is a collaborative research program of the University of Illinois Chicago, which aims to curb tobacco consumption worldwide and is funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies.
Included in the scorecard are four components: absolute price, affordability change, tax share and tax structure, to assess the cigarette taxing policy performance of different countries. It used the scoring of zero to five, with five being more anti-tobacco.
Of the four components, the Philippines received a score of five in terms of less affordability and tax structure.
Compared to its neighboring countries the Philippines had a score higher than Singapore (3.25) and Malaysia (2.75). It is also higher than those of Australia, Germany, Italy and the United States.
The United Kingdom received the highest score overall, with 4.38, followed by Canada (4.25), France (4.13) and the Philippines (3.63). Rounding up the top five is Australia with a score of 3.5.
Cambodia has the lowest overall score with 0.5.
According to Stratbase, the increase in the Philippines’ score and ranking is “rather fast within a short period of time.”
In the 2014 scorecard, the country scored 1.25, which inched up to 2.5 in 2016, and 3.75 in 2018.
The report highlighted that a total of P30 per pack was taxed in 2017, P35 in 2019, P45 in 2020, P50 in 2021, and P55 in 2022.
Using the Laffer curve theory developed by economist Arthur Laffer, Stratbase established the correlation between tax rates and tax revenues. As tax rate rise, tax revenues also increases, they said.
