Excise taxes on tobacco and alcohol products can be an effective instrument for promoting public health through the curbing of smoking and excessive drinking, while raising significant financing for development priorities. Designed and implement well, excise taxes represent a win-win for public health and finances. While the public policy rationale for excise reforms is strong in both developed and developing countries, realizing reforms in practice often faces significant opposition by the industry and vested interests. Low level, complex and poorly designed excise tax regimes persist. Getting the technical details right, and effectively managing the political economy of reforms, are vital to securing better excise tax outcomes. The Philippines passed in 2012, implemented, and has been results monitoring a successful tobacco and alcohol tax, dubbed Sin Tax. The reform not only greatly increased, simplified and improved the excise tax reform, but also earmarked the significant part of the large ensuring incremental revenues to helping finance Universal Health Care (UHC) for the bottom forty percent of the population. Sin Tax Reform in the Philippines summarizes both the technical and political economy aspects of tobacco and excise tax reforms. The study analyzes issues of rate structure and levels, implementation phasing, and equity impact analysis. The book is intended as a resource for audiences in both the Philippines and other countries wishing to promote successful excise tax reforms to towards between public sector governance, finances and health. For the Philippines, it highlights measures to ensure that the revenue and expenditure measures associated with the reform continue to be delivered, and can be deepened over time. The Philippines experience should prove encouraging and useful for reform champions in other countries advancing similar types of excise tax and development financing/expenditure earmarking for equitable development and public health.

The Philippine government's Comprehensive Tax Reform Program Package 1 (CTRP-1) has sparked considerable discussion on its effects on households at different income levels. This paper focuses on the impact on income inequality of the CTRP-1, discerning gaps that continue to exist in the formulation of the tax reform package. Not only do we find that the overall gains of poorer deciles are less certain, once leakage issues in the delivery of targeted transfers are considered; due to higher increases in disposable income from the reform package that accrue to higher deciles, post-tax income inequality increases significantly. Following from the analysis, we present options for policymakers on how to enhance the reform package's response to inequality while preserving as much of its efficiency objectives. Lowering the PIT exemption threshold from PHP250,000 to PHP150,000 (as proposed by Senate Bill 1592) appears to regain some of the erosion of the Gini index that occurs with the House version of the bill; we determine, moreover, that effectively transferring PHP7,800 per household per annum, whether through cash transfers or earmarked programs, will serve to lower the Gini index by one full point from pre-tax levels. This outcome can be better guaranteed by increasing the earmarked share of petroleum excise taxes for social spending from 40% to 65%. Should the mobilization of additional resources prove necessary, three revenue-raising option are proposed: bank transactions taxes on demand deposits, a national land windfall tax or betterment levy, and increased sin taxes on tobacco products.

Developing Asia faces greater uncertainty from the Russian invasion of Ukraine even as the region continues to contend with COVID-19 outbreaks. The war has sent shockwaves across financial and commodity markets. The highly transmissible Omicron variant has fueled a sharp rise in cases in the region, though its less severe health impact, coupled with increased immunity, has allowed economies to remain relatively open. As such, growth in the region is forecast to remain strong, supported by recovering domestic demand. The Russian invasion of Ukraine, aggressive monetary policy tightening in the US, and renewed COVID-19 outbreaks pose near-term risks to the outlook, alongside medium-term risks such as rising inequality due to school closures. Fiscal resources are needed to aid recovery and support sustainable development. But deficits and debt expanded substantially during the pandemic. Mobilizing taxes and optimizing tax incentives needs to be combined with improved spending efficiency to help developing Asia achieve its development objectives.

With increased life expectancy, declining fertility, and sustained economic growth, the disease burden in Bangladesh has shifted from infectious to noncommunicable diseases (NCDs). The policy options and strategic priorities to tackle NCDs are via multisectoral interventions, preventive, and treatment services.

This WHO technical manual on tobacco tax policy and administration builds upon the 2010 WHO technical manual on tobacco tax administration by further detailing the strategies for effective tobacco tax policy development, design, implementation and administration. This 2021 edition also serves as an update to the 2010 manual, incorporating the latest developments in science, technology and policy, as well as providing illustrative recent examples from a variety of countries. The best practices laid out in this manual are designed to inform governments on the development of their tobacco taxation policy, facilitating the achievement of their health and revenue objectives while also supporting their overall development strategy.