Trends and Determinants of Cigarette Tax Increases in Japan: The Role of Revenue Targeting.

ABSTRACT: Cigarette prices in Japan are lower than those in most other high-income countries. A more striking fact is that cigarette tax revenues have been kept almost flat at just over two trillion JPY (Japanese yen; 18.2 billion US dollars) over more than three decades, despite steadily declining cigarette sales and seemingly weakening pressure from stakeholders with a vested interest in the tobacco industry. We attempted to examine trends and determinants of cigarette tax increases in Japan. In particular, we hypothesized that the Japanese finance ministry adjusts cigarette taxes to meet a revenue target. Under this hypothesis, we searched for the most plausible amount of the minimum target of tax revenue that corresponds to cigarette tax increases over the past 37 years (1985-2021) using public

SUBMITTER: Oshio T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9024842 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature