Despite political infighting, the nation´s Health Secretariat and a majority of lawmakers agree that three more pesos in sales tax should be added to the price of a pack of cigarettes, a prominent federal health official said Friday.Mauricio Hernández Avila, prevention undersecretary with the Health Secretariat, said the tax increase would help make up for the heavy public health expenditures that tobacco-related diseases cost the federal coffers.
"It would be fantastic," Hernández said of the proposed tax hike. "It would be a good business decision for the country."
Federal legislators are debating the cigarette tax boost as part of a federal income package. In the budget approval process, expected to be finalized before the new year, income and expenditures are considered separately.
Lawmakers in the Chamber of Deputy have been lobbied heavily by tobacco interests, but Hernández is confident that the plan will pass.
What´s unclear is whether the additional income will go directly to the Health Secretariat, as President Calderón´s proposed budget urges, or into the general fund. Hernández said it doesn´t matter, since the higher price per pack will result in health savings because it will reduce consumption.
"The Health Secretariat saves money when the cigarette tax goes up," he said.
Mexico has been criticized by international anti-smoking organizations for lagging behind other nations in smoking reduction efforts. The issue was a factor in former Health Secretary Julio Frenk´s failure in his bid to become leader of the World Health Organization.
Frenk had based his antismoking efforts on a pesoper-pack contribution from the tobacco company with the proceeds going directly into the treasury of Seguro Popular, the federal free health care program for the poor. But Frenk´s successor, Health Secretary José Ángel Córdova Villalobos, said Friday that the donation never was higher than 55 centavos per pack, meaning that only 2.5 billion pesos were collected rather than the announced 4.5 billion.
"We will need to check with the federal comptroller´s office to find out what happened," Córdova said.
The donation program ended on Dec. 1. The proposal under consideration by deputies would replace it with a mandatory three-peso tax. The tax is backed by a new anti-smoking organization known as the National Alliance Against Tobacco Addiction, made up of medical professionals and academics. The group will run information campaigns aimed at the approximately 14 million Mexican smokers.
