Cigarette Tax Scorecard Shows Governments Not Doing Enough... and Even Going Backwards

A few months ago, the third edition of the Tobacconomics Cigarette Tax Scorecard ¹ was published, evaluating the 2022 performance of cigarette tax policies in 170 countries. Unfortunately, the scorecard shows that governments have made insufficient progress, and even regressed, in addressing the world’s leading cause of preventable death, despite unequivocal evidence showing that when countries raise tobacco taxes, consumption declines (Ngo et al, 2023).

The 170 countries evaluated in the scorecard were assigned a score based on a five-point scale, applied to four different components: cigarette price, changes in cigarette affordability, tax share of cigarette price, and tax structure. Each country received a score for each component, in addition to an overall score.

The scorecard revealed that most countries’ scores had gone down. The most dramatic change in the results pertained to an increase in the number of countries where cigarette affordability had not changed, or worse, where cigarettes were becoming more affordable.