A Study on the effect of levied tobacco tax on cigarette consumption and the National Health

• Main Authors: Ming-Ching Kang, 康銘欽
• Other Authors: Cheng-Feng Lee
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 101
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/y87pmj

碩士 === 國立高雄應用科技大學 === 企業管理系碩士在職專班 === 100 === Since 1987 Taiwan Government allowed the import of foreign cigarettes and tobaccos, it had ended the monopoly of tobaccos and wines that executed for past decades in Taiwan. However, the open market of foreign cigarettes and tobaccos increased the selectivity for consumers, and average tax rates on cigarette products in Taiwan are relatively low with comparing to the tax rates on cigarette products in high-income countries.; in addition, our national income has developed substantially in recent years, which didn’t decrease but caused an increasing trend for the consumption of cigarette products. Due to smoking is not only caused serious harm to human, but also the annual health expenditure of national health insurance that treated diseases resulted from smoking has become more and more. With continuous urgencies from Bureau of National Health Insurance and civil anti-smoking groups, Taiwan Government, therefore, adopted the high cigarette tax rate to adjust the prices of cigarettes to be higher in order to restrain the domestic cigarettes market from growing. Based on the aforesaid reason, this study is mainly explored the influence of tobacco tax and national income on cigarette consumption and national health; in addition, the previous changes in tobacco tax in Taiwan; gross national product (GNP); sales volume of cigarette products; smoking population; annual cigarette consumption per person; and the expenditure of national health which can be considered as the smoking would be used as the variables. The multiple regression and simple regression models would be applied to empirically analyze the relationship among tobacco tax, national income, cigarette consumption market and national health. The research results are as follows: 1. Taxation of tobacco tax has significant negative influence on cigarette consumption market; as a result, in order to maintain national health and reduce their cigarette consumption, the government adopted the method of “increase prices to limit quantity” to restrain smoking population from growing, and it has indeed achieved a good result then. 2. Economic growth has significant positive influence on cigarette consumption market; therefore, this result revealed that the improvement in national income will increase the domestic cigarette consumption. 3. Cigarette consumption market has significant negative influence on the costs attributed smoking. This result showed when the smoking population and domestic cigarette consumption decreased, and the costs attributed smoking would not be reduced as well. Practically speaking, the reason is that smoking always caused long-term harm to human health, and the smokers are usually having diseases during middle and senior ages, even they have already quitted smoking or reduced smoking amount, the costs attributed smoking still would not be reduced as well; in addition, it has gradually increased every year. Furthermore, except for explaining the obtained results, this study will also discuss the application of research results, and; meanwhile, propose related suggestions for governmental policies and follow-up researchers.