TobTaxY

TobTaxY (making Tobacco Tax TrendY) is a European Commission-funded capacity-building project with the aim of training the public health and tobacco control community on tobacco taxation and smuggling issues. The Smokefree partnership is the main partner in the project and EHN is one of the partners involved in the project, responsible for the organisation of the capacity-building workshops.

TobTaxY will run from September 2010 – January 2013.  The purpose of TobTaxY is to build capacity within the public health/tobacco community regarding taxation and smuggling issues. This will be achieved through a multi-stage process:

• firstly, draft policy toolkits will be created by tobacco taxation experts for 31 European countries: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Turkey and the United Kingdom.
• secondly, the draft toolkits will be used as part of a strategy to train 93 public health personnel (3 per country) at five capacity building workshops located across Europe
• finally, using the experiences gained at the workshops, the toolkits will be finalised for wider dissemination via the project networks and partner websites.

Expected Outcomes

Upon completion of the project, the following points are expected to be achieved amongst trainees of the Capacity Building Workshops:

• Increased understanding of the economics of taxation
• Increased understanding of different methods that can be applied in this area (e.g. methods to estimate tax as share of price)
• Identification of resources and support (technical, human and financial) needed to implement the national advocacy plans
• Formulation of rebuttal arguments through skilled debate and strategic action
• Increased use and understanding of the HLY indicator (The “Healthy Life Years” indicator is now in the core set of the European Structural Indicators. This follows the Resolutions of the Lisbon European Council (20 to 23 March 2000)
• Increased number of visits and interaction between the public health community and the Ministries of Finance
• Training on illicit trade issues and Art 15 of the FCTC (Framework Convention on Tobacco Control)

More detailed information on the TobTaxY project can be found on the website of the smokefree partnership via this link: TobTaxY