March 30, 2016

Debbie Wetzel

Senior Director, Global Governance Practice

World Bank Group

dwetzel@worldbank.org

Headline Indicators

Inflation

Subsidy/staples Prices

Public Sector Performance

Regulate

Tax

Spending

Case #1: Philippines Sin Tax Reform Tracking

Shift from low & fragmented excise tax rates to

higher unitary rate for cigarettes

Introduction of New

Holographic Tax Stamp in 2015

(“whale”)

Earmarking of revenues to finance Universal

Health Care (UHC)

….but all packs will be taxed at close to 70 cents

per pack by 2017 with a unitary rate

Limits & lags to available price data

No capture of new market entrants

Philippines Statistics Authority (PSA) price

disclosure constraints

Inability to target and map price captures

9

Recruit & Train Filipinos Identify specific stores, measure

prices, and tax stamp prevalence

Build decision support tools

& analytics

Real time monitoring of cigarette price data

Cheap cigarettes are bad bargains for health!

Monitoring of Tax Stamp roll-out

Hot spots & brands

Public disclosure of results on Department of Finance website

www.dof.gov.ph

CIGARETTES - TAX STAMP PRESENCE NEAR METROPOLITAN MANILA TAX DISTRICTS FROM OCT 1 - DEC 31 2015

15

BIR

District

Tax Stamp

Prevalence

56 74%

60 75%

53A 75%

51 75%

55 75%

56 74%

BIR

District

Tax Stamp

Prevalence

53B 100%

45 92%

21A 90%

27 90%

17A 90%

Least

Compliant Most

Compliant

Data from Oct 1 - Dec 31 2015

Sin Taxes increased from 0.5 % to 1.0 % of

GDP between 2012 to 2015, large due to

cigarettes

1 % Tax Stamp Leakages = USD 20 million

Expansion to health warnings

Pilots to capture illicit tax stamps

Pay attention to excise tax design and implementation

Simple pays

On-going re-fresh of tax stamp design

Easier for public capture

Public scrutiny and information promote accountability

Government & Industry

Case #2: eProcurement in Amazonia, Brazil

1.6 million km2

2.3 people/km2

1.8% of pop.

27% rural pop.

62 municipalities

Source: IBGE 2010.

Conclusions

International

Benchmarking

Prices for Impact

Evaluations

Open Governments &

Accountability

Expectations!

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THANK YOU