The federal government is intending to generate more than 70 billion rupees every year from the imposition of ‘sin tax.’
The Health Ministry has forwarded a summary to the Cabinet Division in this regard.
The ministry has recommended imposing a tax of Rs. 10 per cigarette packet and Rs. 2 per 100ml of soft drinks.
According to the Health Ministry, around 4 billion cigarette packets are sold every year in Pakistan.
The ministry has estimated the annual income from the additional tax to be around Rs. 70 billion.
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The proceed generated through the tax will be spent on the projects of the Prime Minister’s Health Programme.
The tax will go into effect as soon as the Cabinet approved the summary.
Earlier this month, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf(PTI) government took this ‘revolutionary’ step to discourage smoking in the country and decided to levy a special tax on smokers, which will be called ‘sin tax’.
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Pakistan will be the second country in the world to impose ‘sin tax’ on cigarette smokers. The Philippines was the first country to introduce the tax. The number of cigarette packs put on store shelves by retailers fell drastically after the tax was introduced.
The Philippines government imposed the tax in 2012 to raise revenues and discourage smoking, which kills nearly 88,000 Filipinos each year according to World Health Organization data.
