The vote took place with almost general indifference. “A Friday,” sighs a parliamentarian. On December 5, the deputies voted (7 votes!) An amendment modifying the calculation of the taxation of tobacco products. Thanks to him, and for the first time in five years, cigarette packs did not increase by 30 cents in January of this year. Better, this new tax system will, according to our information, lead to a decrease in tax revenues of at least 70 million euros in 2015. A loss of earnings for the State, which was calculated in a working document of the Gustave Roussy-Inserm Institute, carried out by researcher Catherine Hill from the institute's cancer epidemiology service.
From now on, cigarettes which cost 6,50 euros for 20 will be taxed at 64,7%, instead of 65,4%, and cigarettes at 7 euros for 20 will be taxed at 63,6%, instead of 64,3, 2014%. With the old calculation system, the increase in prices charged by tobacco companies in 1 should have automatically resulted on January 2015, 14,4 in an increase in taxes of 2014 centimes on the package. With the new amendment, the price increase observed in 2015 has no impact on taxes in 6,20. Thanks to this new calculation method, which no longer takes into account the selling price of the previous year, the industry tobacco tried to take advantage of this to market cigarettes at € 20 for 2 from March 2015, XNUMX.
“With the previous mechanism, Social Security collects part of the increase in the price of tobacco. From now on, with the amendment, any increase will mainly benefit tobacco companies, ”regrets Valérie Rabault, PS MP for Tarn-et-Garonne. If the manufacturers decide to increase the selling prices, with the previous system, Social Security receives part of this increase. A 20% increase raises the price of the most expensive pack of cigarettes from 7,2 to 8,64 euros. With the previous system, this increase of 1,44 euros would return for 1,15 euros to Social Security and 0,29 euros to tobacco companies. With the system put in place thanks to the amendment, this increase of 1,44 euros amounts to 0,95 euros to Social Security and 0,48 euros to tobacco companies. So the tobacco company recovers 19,5 euro cents more per pack than the previous system.
The amendment was highly contested before its adoption last December: it was rejected in session, during the budget debate on the 2015 finance bill, then in the finance committee on the amending finance bill for 2014.
The contentious amendment was supported by the Secretary of State for the Budget, Christian Eckert. On December 12, he declared to the Senate: “The mechanism currently in force would automatically increase the price of a pack of cigarettes from 20 to 30 cents. The government wants more readability. It therefore invites you to set a tax that is no longer expressed in terms of the prices of the previous year. The price will be set in euros, per thousand cigarettes, instead of the current calculation, which even a mathematics aggregate does not understand much. We suggest that you set strictly the same level of taxation in 2015 as in 2014. ” A gift primarily intended for tobacconists, but which ultimately also benefits tobacco companies.
For twenty years, researchers, but also the World Health Organization and the World Bank have been unanimous: the rise in the price of tobacco has lowered its consumption and has a positive effect on public health. The President of the Republic himself, however, recalled it in February 2014 during his speech on the 3rd cancer plan: tobacco price increases remained the first lever in the fight against smoking. As proof, in Corsica, where packages cost on average 25% less than on the continent (5,25 euros for Marlboro against 7 euros in Paris), the regional health agency of Corsica observes that deaths from cancer of the lungs are 26% larger (2011-2012 figures).
