Monitoring and Measuring Health Taxes

We draw from the well-established global monitoring of tobacco taxes by the World Health Organization and provide a proposed similar approach to develop new – or adapt existing – monitoring tools for taxes on alcoholic beverages and sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs). Since 2008, the periodical and global monitoring of tobacco tax levels, prices, affordability and additional tax structure and tax administration information has enabled standardised comparisons across countries and over time, informed policymaking and institutional opportunities or barriers to apply tobacco taxes, led to defining best practices in the design of such taxes, and provided powerful tools for advocacy, especially with ministries of finance to promote fiscal and health policy coherence. Monitoring taxes on alcoholic beverages and SSBs in a similar way would require adjusting the methodology used to monitor taxes on tobacco products to the unique characteristics of these beverages – namely the fact that these products are more diverse than tobacco products in terms of product types consumed, and in volume sizes and content. In addition to collecting data on the tax structure, tax rates, tax bases and nominal retail prices on several different beverage types, monitoring taxes on alcoholic beverages and SSBs would require information on beverage volume sizes and sugar content and alcohol concentration. A balance would need to be reached between characterising the diversity of global or regional consumption patterns, ensuring the standardisation and precision of the indicators, and limiting the data requirements from national authorities. While institutional considerations are to be considered in expanding the global routine monitoring systems for taxes on alcoholic beverages and SSBs, there are lessons to be learned and potential synergies from the experience monitoring tobacco taxes. The successful monitoring of taxes applied on these three unhealthy products would play a great role in promoting global action and driving progress to reduce the burden of non-communicable diseases.