E-cig tax poor health policy

Some anti-smoking groups are opposing the European Commission’s decision to draft an ‘appropriate legislative proposal’ to tax electronic cigarettes under the same regime as tobacco cigarettes, according to a story by Rachel Middleton for the International Business Times, relayed by the TMA.

Deborah Arnott, the chief executive of Action on Smoking and Health, was quoted as saying that if the EU “were to require member states to tax electronic cigarettes like tobacco products it would be seriously detrimental to public health”.

“It would lead to increased prices and discourage smokers from switching.”

An Euobserver story reported here yesterday said that when the EU’s finance ministers met on March 8, they were expected to endorse the European Commission’s drafting in 2017 of an appropriate legislative proposal to tax electronic cigarettes under the same regime as cigarettes are taxed.

The ministers reportedly have said that electronic cigarettes and other novel products could cause ‘inconsistencies and legal uncertainty’ in the single market if they remained exempt from excise taxes.

And they apparently added that excise taxes or some ‘other specifically designed tax’ on novel products could help meet public health objectives.

However, Olivier Hoedeman of the Brussels-based pro-transparency non-governmental organization Corporate Europe Observatory said it would be “awkward” to put electronic cigarettes in the same category as regular cigarettes if the science wasn’t there yet.

Perhaps the most telling quote was one that had the ministers saying that work on the new tax regime should be intensified if the market share of the novel products showed a tendency to increase.