Report from the „Seminar on the taxation of tobacco in the European Union", 28-29 September 2006 (Budapest, Grand Hotel Royal): by Tibor Szilagyi [currently working at WHO Secretariat] The conference has been organised by the International Tax and Investment Center (ITIC), an international N'GO registered in the US. The website of this organisation (www. iticnei.org) previously acknowledged receiving support from tobacco companies. Audience: Around 50 people, representing primarily finance ministries and financial research institutes from Central and Eastern Ruropean countries. The only speaker from the Ruropean Commission has been Mr Alexander Wiedovv, director of indirect taxation and tax administration of the EC. The Chairman of the conference has been Prof Sijbren Cnossen of the University of Maastricht. Another key speaker Mr Adrian Cooper (UK), managing director of Oxford Economic Forecasting. Both have been actively put forward tobacco industry arguments with regard to taxation of tobacco products. The latter has published a ..special report" with this occasion, entitled ..Addressing the RU cigarette excise regime review 2006". The report ~ the introduction says ••- analyses the strengths and weaknesses of the RU taxation regime and ..considers how it should be reformed". The report considers the escalation of the black market as a sign of a ..destabilized cigarette market", which is primarily caused by tax and price increases. The report publishes a table (page 10) on the share of black market in selected RU countries, mentioning as source ..industry estimates". It considers, for example, 25% of the Hungarian or 35% of Lithuanian market as ..black", without even mentioning on which basis these estimates have been made. (The frightening ..ghost" of cigarette black market had put its imprint in all comments and discussions of the conference.) At the end of the report there is a list of recommendations on how the author wishes to review the RU tax regulation. (The same recommendations have been presented by Prof Cnossen in his introductory keynote speech.) These are as follows: 1. simplification of the excise structure by not using the concept of MPPC. by do not requiring minimum tax and strict ad valorem/specific ratios; 2. simplification of excise rates and levels: all cigarettes to be required to conform to a minimum excise burden, not only the MPPC class. The report recommends that the €64 regulation should only be applied for the old EU1 5 states, while the new ones should be given longer extension periods (e.g. 2010), and their excise levels should be determined based on affordability and adjusted to their lower living standards. The 57% ad valorem incidence should not be further increased since "tax incidence in the RU is already high by international standards. The document takes US as an example, weher there is significant "clustering" -- following the US would link tax rates to affordability. 3. other important areas to consider: longer transition periods, limits to cross-border shopping must be reintroduced, (when the latter has been mentioned by Prof Cnossen, Mr Wiedovv responded that such an intervention will not fit into the concept of the internal market, and introducing it for tobacco others would ask for such a regime for other products, too.) In his introductory speech Prof Cnossen spoke about the externalities of smoking. He mentioned studies of Viscusi (2000), Manning et al (1989), Lightwood et al (2000) and Pekunnen (1992) all suggesting that external costs are not that high and also, smokers "do pay for external costs" in their lifetimes. He recommended that the overall tax burden on cigarettes should not be higher than the level of external costs and than levels which can still be enforced. Ad valorem taxes Source: http://industrydocuments.library.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/rygp0219 "should be confined to VAT" (to a 1 5% VAT). Derogation periods should be extended for new MSs. At the end of his speech he said that everybody "should stop about smoking as a sin'\ and saying "enjoy your smoke!" he sent people to a coffee break. In his speech A Wiedow of the EC already answered some of CnosseiTs recommendations, which gave the mression that he knew in advance what Cnossen would recommend. As such, he disagreed with setting taxes in a way to only meet external costs, while admitting that there was no specific health policy objective for introducing tobacco tax directives. He admitted there are "limits to taxation", and these include public acceptance, the fact that in some MS tax receipts do not increase further with higher tax levels, and the black market. He mentioned that TIRSP varies widely across the MSs, and this led to increased corss border shopping and contraband. He criticized the MPPC concept, which ^did not lead to approximation, is complex, outdated and may lead to distorsions of comptetition". He implied the requirement for combining ad valorem and specific taxes would remain. The first is preferred by southern countries, the latter by northern countries not producing raw tobacco. He presented the four main aims for the Commission 2006 report. These are: simplification of legislation, basic fundamentals of present legislation questioned (such as MPPC), health objectives and the issue of substitution (fine-cut tobacco taxation). Details have been provided on all the above as follows: • reform of tax structure contemplated; minimum EU tax level defined in specific rate has some advantages: renounces on the need of using the MPPC concept but EC is committd to provide room for MSs for using both tax types • derogations: to be finished asap, no further derogations for MSs • health objectives: currently not taken into account "but they have become more important", since the EC approved the FCTC in June 2004; "need to increase minimum taxes at EU level0" • fine cut tobaccos: difference between tax structure and minimum taxes of fine cut tobacco and cigarettes, the issue of substitution; "it is recommended to increase the tax burden to at leat 2/3 of the burden on cigarettes (i.e. increase minimum duty from €32 to €53 per kg) Commenting the speech of A Wiedow P Pospisilova of the Czech R raised concerns about the escalation of the black market in her country. She mentioned that Czech R would not agree with a recommendation to increase minimum duty of 57%, but would welcome the prolongation of the granted transition period. M Braszcz Tax expert from Poland said that "the questions of health and external costs related to smoking are simply irrelevant" for him. He also admitted that his country would not agree with a further increase in tobacco tax levels. Z Krajcir of Slovakia seemed to support using tobacco taxation to reach health objectives, saying that his country's "objective to get more revenues while having less smoking". He said he cannot buy arguments which call for cigarettes to be more "affordable". He thinks, however, that excise tax levels should be left to be decided nationally, not at EU level. Another session dealt with cigarette smuggling. An excellent case study on the fighting against contraband has been presented by Paul Gerrard of UK. Commenting on the presentation A Cooper of Oxford Economic Forecasting said that efforts to counter cigarette smuggling seem to only treat symptoms, but not the cause, the latter being high taxes. Some country representatives also called cigarette smuggling as an imprtant problem for them. Majority of them blamed high taxes for the escalation of the black market. In a session called "protecting tax revenues" M Juruss from Latvia presented the case of his country. He admitted that tax revenues increased dinamically in his country from €20 million in Source: http://industrydocuments.library.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/rygp0219 2004 to 30 million in 2005. with the first half of 2006 figure put at 1 8 million. Still he blamed cigarette smuggling from the neighbouring Russia and Belarus as causes lowering budget incomes. Summarizing main methods on how to protect local taxa revenues from tobacco he called for more opportunity to MSs "to adjust excise tax rate to the level of real incomes". He recommends that EU tax levels should not be increased until the end of transition periods granted to new MSs. Other recommendations: discussions at political level with neighbouring states the levels of cigarette taxes with a view to their approximation; EU excise levels can be increased if tax collection in MSs "is ensured in full and the tax administration is able to combat smuggling"; "strenghtening the capacity of national tax administrations"; "encourage further cooperation with tax administrations in other MSs and customs administrations of non-EU countries". One session, with the participation of Ayda Yurekli. advisor to the WB and WHO dealt with "the balance of tax and health policies". She put forward the health objectives in taxing tobacco products, but emphasised that health advocates would never lobby for policies which endanger national incomes from tobacco. She admitted that both objectives can be reached by a tax raising policy. She put emphasis on external costs related to smoking, which have to be covered by state budgets. Prof Cnossen as discussant agreed to many of what Mrs Yurekli said. He admitted that the main difference between them is that he is not interested in decreasing the demand for tobacco products. He agreed that with a view to reaching health objectives specific taxes should be levied, if raising more revenues is also an issue ad valorem taxes should also be increased. Responding to a question from the floor Mrs Yurekli admitted that earmarking tobacco taxes for financing health promotion interventions "does not necessarily work" in particular countries. There should be a good infrastructure to use the collected funds otherwise this "can be corrupted". At the end of the meeting Prof Cnossen summarized the different approaches used in tobacco taxation.