Experts at a workshop stressed the urgent need for an overhaul of cigarette tax structure, saying that reforms could generate an additional Tk 20 billion in government revenue and encourage millions to quit smoking.
The two-day event, titled 鈥楾obacco Tax and Price Measures: Budget FY 2025-26,鈥� was organised by PROGGA (Knowledge for Progress) and ATMA (Anti-Tobacco Media Alliance) at the BIP Conference Room in Dhaka on Thursday.
It was attended by 50 journalists from various print, television and online media outlets.
During the workshop, experts pointed out that the current four-tier cigarette price structure 鈥� low, medium, high, and premium 鈥� had made tobacco pricing and tax measures less effective.
Specifically, the narrow price gap between low and medium-tier cigarettes enables consumers to easily switch between these two categories, undermining the intended price regulation.
To address this issue, the speakers proposed merging the low and medium tiers into a single category in the upcoming budget for the 2025-26 financial year.
This adjustment would reduce the number of price tiers to three, effectively raising the price for lower-tier cigarettes and discouraging consumption among the youth and lower-income groups, they said.
The speakers said that tobacco products in Bangladesh were already inexpensive, especially compared with essential commodities.
This is largely due to the lack of a robust tax structure, making tobacco products more affordable than they should be.
Proposed tax measures for the FY26 budget include merging low and medium-tier cigarettes into one category, with a price of Tk 90 for 10 sticks; maintaining the current price of Tk 140 for high-tier cigarettes (10 sticks); raising the price of premium cigarettes to Tk 190 for 10 sticks; keeping the supplementary duty (SD) at 67 per cent for all cigarette tiers; setting Tk 25 for 25 sticks of non-filtered bidi and Tk 20 for 20 sticks of filtered bidi, both subject to a 45 per cent SD; setting the retail price for 10 grams of jarda and gul at Tk 55 and Tk 30, respectively, with a 60 per cent SD; retaining the 15 per cent VAT on tobacco products and continuing the 1 per cent health development surcharge (HDS).
City editor of聽Daily Janakantha聽Kawser Rahman, deputy editor of聽The Business Standard聽Sazzadur Rahman, ATMA convener Mortuza Haider Liton and co-convener Nadira Kiron. ABM Zubair, executive director of PROGGA, and Hasan Shahriar, head of tobacco control at PROGGA, also took part in the discussion.