Alcohol Tax Scorecard

The Economics for Health Alcohol Tax Scorecard (1st edition) was written by Jeffrey Drope, Saw Min Thu Oo, Carlos Guerrero, Sehr Malik, Margaret Dorokhina, Anita Bontu, Ana Mugosa, Germán Rodriguez-Iglesias, Tatiana Villacres, and Frank Chaloupka. The 1st edition of the Scorecard assesses the performance of beer and spirit tax policies in 162 countries. It uses 2024 data from the WHO Global Health Observatory to score countries on a five-point scale, thus providing policy makers with an actionable assessment. There are three scoring components used: alcohol price tax share of retail price, and tax structure used. Each country receives a score for each component, in addition to an overall score, for both beer and spirits. The Scorecard also assesses the affordability of alcoholic beverages as a percentage of GDP, since there is insufficient data to analyze change in affordability over time in this inaugural edition. The Scorecard findings shows that most government are not implementing best practices in alcohol tax policy, leaving significant room for improvement. These results highlight the need for governments to commit to reducing alcohol-related harm, while raising much-needed tax revenue with one of public health's "best buys": alcohol taxes.