Australian smokers want to cry blind, cigarette prices rise again!
Australian cigarette prices rose another 12.5 percent on Sunday, the Daily Mail reported.
This is believed to be the latest increase in tobacco consumption tax increases, with an average price of A $35 per pack of cigarettes in Australia.
Federal government has now raised the tobacco consumption tax for seven years in a row, and the average price of tobacco per pack is expected to reach A $40 per pack by 2020.
For smokers, the average cost of smoking will rise to A $10,000 a year, a health official said.
According to experts, including VAT, the current price of a cigarette in Australia is more than A $1.
Colin Mendelsohn, of the School of Public Health at the University of New South Wales, said:
"before the price went up, Australia had the highest cigarette price in the world."
"20 Marlboro cigarettes sell for A $30, while New Zealand only sells for about A $27, and will only become more expensive later."
Experts also said that endless tax increases could raise the price of cigarettes in Australia to 40 Australian dollars per pack next year.
By September 1, 2020, smokers will face the eighth tax increase.
Quit Tasmania`s Abby Smith told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation over the weekend:
If a smoker smokes a pack of cigarettes a day, it costs A $10,000 a year.
But Mendelsohn said the impact of tax increases on smoking rates was not as serious as it used to be.
The World Health Organization has found that price increases are the most effective way to encourage smokers to quit smoking and prevent children from smoking.
According to figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics this year:
Adults who smoked daily dropped to 13.8 percent in 2017-18 from 23.8 percent in 1995.
However, the daily smoking rate in recent years has not changed significantly, with a decrease of only 0.7 per cent between 2014-15 and 2017-18.
Mendelsohn states: "We all know that tax increases can reduce the rate of smoking, but for smokers, they have no choice but to continue smoking."
ref：https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7421087/Cigarette-prices-Australia-surge-12-5-cent-latest-excise-hike.html
