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No smoking gun: tobacco taxation and smuggling in Sierra Leone

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the common industry claim that higher tobacco taxation leads to higher levels of smuggling, particularly in a limited state capacity setting. DESIGN: This paper evaluates the effects of a tobacco tax increase in Sierra Leone on smuggling by using gap analyses. Its models are b...

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Autores principales: Gallien, Max, Occhiali, Giovanni
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BMJ Publishing Group 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10646925/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35654588
http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/tobaccocontrol-2021-057163
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author Gallien, Max
Occhiali, Giovanni
author_facet Gallien, Max
Occhiali, Giovanni
author_sort Gallien, Max
collection PubMed
description OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the common industry claim that higher tobacco taxation leads to higher levels of smuggling, particularly in a limited state capacity setting. DESIGN: This paper evaluates the effects of a tobacco tax increase in Sierra Leone on smuggling by using gap analyses. Its models are based on multiple rounds of the Demographic and Health Survey and customs data as well as newly collected data on cigarette prices. RESULTS: The paper shows that despite a substantial increase in cigarette taxation, and despite the absence of other formal tobacco control policies, smuggling has not increased in Sierra Leone. Its primary model shows a decrease in cigarette smuggling by 16.74% following the tax increase, alongside a decrease in cigarette consumption more widely and an increase in tax revenue. CONCLUSIONS: By presenting a low income and lower enforcement capacity case study, this paper provides novel and critical evidence to the debate on the tax-smuggling link. Furthermore, it points to new questions on how states in these contexts can limit cigarette smuggling.
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spelling pubmed-106469252023-11-15 No smoking gun: tobacco taxation and smuggling in Sierra Leone Gallien, Max Occhiali, Giovanni Tob Control Original Research OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the common industry claim that higher tobacco taxation leads to higher levels of smuggling, particularly in a limited state capacity setting. DESIGN: This paper evaluates the effects of a tobacco tax increase in Sierra Leone on smuggling by using gap analyses. Its models are based on multiple rounds of the Demographic and Health Survey and customs data as well as newly collected data on cigarette prices. RESULTS: The paper shows that despite a substantial increase in cigarette taxation, and despite the absence of other formal tobacco control policies, smuggling has not increased in Sierra Leone. Its primary model shows a decrease in cigarette smuggling by 16.74% following the tax increase, alongside a decrease in cigarette consumption more widely and an increase in tax revenue. CONCLUSIONS: By presenting a low income and lower enforcement capacity case study, this paper provides novel and critical evidence to the debate on the tax-smuggling link. Furthermore, it points to new questions on how states in these contexts can limit cigarette smuggling. BMJ Publishing Group 2023-11 2022-06-02 /pmc/articles/PMC10646925/ /pubmed/35654588 http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/tobaccocontrol-2021-057163 Text en © Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2023. Re-use permitted under CC BY. Published by BMJ. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported (CC BY 4.0) license, which permits others to copy, redistribute, remix, transform and build upon this work for any purpose, provided the original work is properly cited, a link to the licence is given, and indication of whether changes were made. See: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
spellingShingle Original Research
Gallien, Max
Occhiali, Giovanni
No smoking gun: tobacco taxation and smuggling in Sierra Leone
title No smoking gun: tobacco taxation and smuggling in Sierra Leone
title_full No smoking gun: tobacco taxation and smuggling in Sierra Leone
title_fullStr No smoking gun: tobacco taxation and smuggling in Sierra Leone
title_full_unstemmed No smoking gun: tobacco taxation and smuggling in Sierra Leone
title_short No smoking gun: tobacco taxation and smuggling in Sierra Leone
title_sort no smoking gun: tobacco taxation and smuggling in sierra leone
topic Original Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10646925/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35654588
http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/tobaccocontrol-2021-057163
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