Expensive Addiction
Cigarettes to rise by $6.50 a packet as part of sweeping tax reforms in Australia
Smokers will pay up to $6.50 more for a packet of cigarettes as part of sweeping tax reforms to be unveiled by the Rudd Government.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and his senior ministers were confirming plans to announce the cigarette hit, foreshadowed in the Herald Sun two weeks ago.
Under one pricing scenario, a packet of 30 cigarettes will rise from about $13.50 to $20 over three years.
The National Preventative Health Taskforce has called for the cigarette tax rise to be included in next month's Budget and the Henry tax review - to be released on Sunday - backs the move.
But the price rise could be delayed until after this year's election, softening the blow for up to three million smokers.
The health taskforce argues that such a hefty rise would reduce the number of smokers by a million within a decade, helping the Government save some of the $31 billion that smoking costs the community each year.
It would be the first rise in the tax rate on tobacco in more than a decade. Australia has the third lowest tobacco tax rate in the developed world at 68 per cent, with most others at 75-80 per cent
The tax hit on cigarettes will form part of a range of measures to help pay for $5.4 billion in health sweeteners offered to the premiers last week.
(Published by The Herald Sun - April 27, 2010)