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The most popular tax in Europe? Lessons from the Irish plastic bags levy

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Author Info
Frank Convery
Simon McDonnell ()
Susana Ferreira

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Abstract

There have been occasional ad hoc efforts to influence consumer behaviour by the imposition of product taxes that reflect external costs imposed by such products that are not initially included in their price. In the spirit of this idea, in 2002 Ireland introduced a 15 Euro cent tax on plastic shopping bags, previously provided free of charge to customers at points of sale. The effect of the tax on the use of plastic bags in retail outlets has been dramatic—a reduction in use in the order of 90%, and an associated gain in the form of reduced littering and negative landscape effects. Costs of administration have been very low, amounting to about 3% of revenues, because it was possible to integrate reporting and collection into existing Value Added Tax reporting systems. Response from the main stakeholders: the public and the retail industry, has been overwhelmingly positive. Central to this acceptance has been a policy of extensive consultation with these stakeholders. The fact that a product tax can influence consumer behaviour significantly will be of interest to many policymakers in this area. This paper analyses the plastic bag levy success story and provides insights and general guidelines for other jurisdictions planning similar proposals. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, Inc. 2007

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File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10640-006-9059-2
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Publisher Info
Article provided by European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists in its journal Environmental and Resource Economics.

Volume (Year): 38 (2007)
Issue (Month): 1 (September)
Pages: 1-11
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Handle: RePEc:kap:enreec:v:38:y:2007:i:1:p:1-11

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Web page: http://www.springerlink.com/link.asp?id=100263

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Related research
Keywords: Environmental taxes; Product taxes; Plastic bag tax; Litter; Ireland;

Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Benno Torgler & Maria A. Garcia-Valinas & Alison Macintyre, 2008. "Justifiability of Littering: An Empirical Investigation," School of Economics and Finance Discussion Papers and Working Papers Series 233, School of Economics and Finance, Queensland University of Technology, revised 17 Jun 2008. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  2. Don Fullerton & Andrew Leicester & Stephen Smith, 2008. "Environmental Taxes," NBER Working Papers 14197, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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