Les Taxes sur le Tabac en Afrique Tobacco Taxes in Africa

In Zambia, the tax rate went down

From 46% to 30%.

Problems with the numbers in the MPOWER Report

It looks like there are problems with the numbers reported on the page 188 of the MPOWER report as far as tobacco taxes in Africa are concerned.

Zemenfes wrote: "The tax rates for Eritrea are not correct. The tax rates on cigarettes in
Eritrea are  excise tax of 100% plus sales tax of 12%."

Yussuf wrote: " It is wrong for South Africa. The rate is 52% of retail price on all tobacco products, except snuff where the rate is 0%."

Evan explains: " This is a comprehensive list although I am not sure how accurate it is. A big problem is that many African countries have very complex tax structures which often include ad valorem taxes rather than specific tax. Also this only includes excise taxes and not other taxes. In the case of South Africa, which I am very familiar with, if one includes the VAT (sales tax) then the tax component of the price is about 52% - this is important since the VAT is levied not only on the industry price but on the specific tax as well, so the specific tax is even a lot higher than than the 32% reported in MPOWER! The advantage of MPOWER is that it is consistent across countries but not necessarily accurate since it relies on surveys of people who may or may not have the requisite knowledge. The complexity of tax structures in Africa is often driven through industry lobbying to have systems that allow greater manipulation of the retail price."