This diploma thesis allows getting complex summary about important aspects of tax theory with special focus on excise taxes. The thesis is an analysis of excise tax on alcoholic beverages and tobacco products in the Czech Republic in the years 2000-2015. The analysis includes an assessment of the impact of rates increase of specific excise taxes on the state budget, the consumption of selected products and the number of detected tax evasions. The thesis demonstrated a positive correlation between the increase in excise taxes and revenues from alcoholic beverages and tobacco products. Increasing rates but also leads to a decrease in consumption of these products and has an impact on the number of detected cases of tax evasions in the area of excise taxes.

My thesis is aiming to answer the question what are the impacts of alcohol regulative legislation (especially the excise tax) on demand for it. The theoretical part presents various opinions and conclusions regarding the regulatory measures (apart from others Stigler, 1975) and the impact of alcohol price change on the demand for it (Becker, 1988 and his successors). Further on, individual regulatory measures, their development in time and basic reasoning for introducing of the measures are introduced in the work. In its analytical part, the thesis deals with comparison of states with different alcohol consumption levels and with different regulatory measures in effect; the work thus divides the EU-countries to groups of different traditions and level of control (the Global Alcohol Policy Report by WHO is used as a source of information in this regard). The data available for the selected countries are then subject to research regarding statistical relevance of the excise tax - consumption relation. The paper thus answers a question of alcohol demand elasticity and also the question of the differences in the consumption attributes in various cultural and regulatory conditions. As a source of the relevant information, analytical parts of OECD, WHO and CSU (Czech Statistical Office) databases are used in the paper.

Tax-setting policy belongs to the main duties of politicians from time immemorial. Since those times, people are questioning whether politicians, while setting taxes, are pursuing mainly interests of publi or their own. In this thesis, I am studying this question in the industry of alcoholic beverages, regulation of it's consumption and production. I am using two statistical models, simple model of partial equilibria and AIDS model (Almost Ideal Demand System), to estimate own price elasticity of demand for beer, wine and spirits in selected post-soviet countries: Azerbaijan, Georgia, Latvia, Lithuania and Russian Federation. Linear model with mixed effects is estimated to uncover the strength and direction of dependency of alcohol policy on own price elasticity of demand for alcoholic beverages in the above mentioned countries. Results show, that politicians of Azerbaijan, Georgia, Lithuania and Russian Federation set the alcohol policy in accordance with maximization of tax revenue hypothesis, while Latvians seems to be rather vote maximizers. I have expected the politicians in Baltic states to behave similar and also least populistically from studied countries. But my expectations were not fulfilled.

Tobacco as subject of excise tax Abstract The subject of my work is the excise duty on tobacco products and tobacco in all its forms. Tobacco is a very specific product in terms of taxation in comparison with other products taxed by excise duty. Whether it is the issue of labeling tobacco products, filing tax returns, or the method of packaging and price regulation, in all these areas, the administration of excise duty on tobacco products is a completely separate piece of legislation, which differs significantly from the administration of other excise duties. All these institutes are analyzed in detail, including consideration of the relevant case law of administrative courts. Complementary to tax regulation of tobacco products is the excise duty on raw tobacco, which is a new type of excise duty (which is not harmonized by European Union law). A novelty in the field of excise duties across the European Union but also globally is the tax on heated tobacco products, which has been enshrined in all legal systems in recent years. The aim of my work is a thorough analysis of all the above areas. Also due to the reason that in the Czech Republic, the excise duty on tobacco products and tobacco has not yet been the subject of one comprehensive publication. In the area of tobacco product legislation, I will...

A large part of the empirical work on differentiated products markets has focused on demand estimation and the pricing behavior of firms. These two themes are key inputs in important applications such as the merging of two firms or the introduction of new products. The validity of inferences, therefore, depends on accurate demand estimates and sound assumptions about the pricing behavior of firms. This dissertation makes a contribution to this literature in two ways. First, it adds to previous techniques of estimating demand for differentiated products. Second, it extends previous analyses of pricing behavior to models of price leadership that, while important, have received limited attention. The investigation focuses on the U.S. brewing industry, where price leadership appears to be an important type of firm behavior. The analysis is conducted in two stages. In the first stage, the recent Distance Metric (DM) method devised by Pinkse, Slade and Brett is used to estimate the demand for 64 brands of beer in 58 major metropolitan areas of the United States. This study adds to previous applications of the DM method (Pinkse and Slade; Slade 2004) by employing a demand specification that is more flexible and also by estimating advertising substitution coefficients for numerous beer brands. In the second stage, different pricing models are compared and ranked by exploiting the exogenous change in the federal excise tax of 1991. Demand estimates of the first stage are used to compute the implied marginal costs for the different models of pricing behavior prior to the tax increase. Then, the tax increase is added to the these pre-tax increase marginal costs, and equilibrium prices for all brands are simulated for each model of pricing behavior. These "predicted" prices are then compared to actual prices for model assessment. Results indicate that Bertrand-Nash predicts the pricing behavior of firms more closely than other models, although Stackelberg leadership yields results that are not substanitally different from the Bertrand-Nash model. Nevertheless, Bertrand-Nash tends to under-predict prices of more price-elastic brands and to over-predict prices of less price- elastic brands. An implication of this result is that Anheuser-Busch could exert more market power by increasing the price of its highly inelastic brands, especially Budweiser. Overall, actual price movements as a result of the tax increase tend to be more similar across brands than predicted by any of the models considered. While this pattern is not inconsistent with leadership behavior, leadership models considered in this dissertation do not conform with this pattern. / Ph. D.

The topicality of this issue increases proportionally with increasing consumption of tobacco products, especially in certain age and social groups. Revenue from excise taxes on tobacco products is growing partly due to the ever-increasing consumption of tobacco products and also due to a gradual increase in taxes. The theoretical part will deal with tax theory, the theory of general government revenue and expenditure and the negative consequences caused by the consumption of tobacco products. The practical part will analyze the evolution of consumption of tobacco products, the development of revenues from excise taxes on tobacco products, development costs incurred in removing the negative consequences of tobacco consumption and the like. The aim of this work is the processing of the material on the development of tobacco consumption and evaluation of revenue and expenses resulting from the consumption of tobacco products, including the negative consequences, which will be proposed for their elimination.

The subject of this thesis is interaction between market prices and consumption taxes. The thesis contains analysis of influence of consumption taxes on market prices of five chosen goods, monitors possible causes, observes and quantifies the amount of additionally imposed tax, which is beard by consumer or producer of the good. The analysis of consumption taxes influence on market prices is performed by methods of correlation and regression analysis. Analyzed products are petrol "natural 95" (unleaded), diesel oil, cigarettes Petra and Sparta, dark rum and beer. Prices of these goods are monitored by Czech Statistical Office. First part of this thesis contains mostly theoretical introduction and impact theory of taxes. Second part deals with particular consumption taxes and their short-term impact. The third part of this thesis contains the statistical analysis.

Smoking is considered as the single greatest preventable cause of morbidity and mortality. Therefore government is trying to reduce smoking by its interventions. The subject of this work is to examine the effects of governmental interventions in terms of their proclaimed and actual consequences. The criterions for our evaluations will be the impact of the intervention on the public health, state budget and social redistribution. In order to outline the situation more comprehensively we will include also uninteded consequences of governmental activities. This will serve as an additional criterion for governmental intervention evaluation. We have no ambition to find the clearly best method for reduction of smoking behavior. We will attempt to point out that there are several contradictions among proclaimed and actual consequences of governmental interventions.

Unhealthy eating habits are one of the main causes of deteriorating health and premature death among Sweden’s population. Foods containing added sugars are common today and they rarely contain the nutrients that are essential for our bodies to stay healthy. Overconsuming sugar can lead to several diseases, including obesity and caries. Obesity in turn increases the risk of suffering from cardiovascular diseases, cancer, stroke, and diabetes type 2. The health effects of sugar are costly to society and a sugar tax on sugar-sweetened beverages is a possible financial instrument to improve public health and at the same time reduce healthcare costs. The cost savings and tax revenue can then be used to finance further implementations of strategies to improve the public health of the citizens of Sweden. The purpose of this essay is to investigate whether it is socio-economically viable to introduce an excise tax on sugar-sweetened beverages in Sweden. The drinks that would be affected by the tax are sodas, juices, energy drinks, sport drinks and ciders. A cost-benefit analysis is the economic method that will be used in this essay to investigate the issue. The possible costs and benefits from the implementation of a tax are identified and valued in monetary terms. In addition to this, a sensitivity analysis is carried out to test how sensitive the project is to differences in estimated costs and benefits. The calculations of costs and benefits are based on secondary data and statistics from previous studies as well as reports and statistics from Swedish authorities. The results of this essay show that the benefits of a tax on sugar-sweetened beverages had exceeded the costs, which is also showed by the cost-benefit ratio which is 1,47 and thus exceeds 1. The sensitivity analysis shows that the results are stable and credible since alternative values of costs and benefits also would lead to cost-benefit ratios exceeding 1. Based on the results, a recommendation is made to introduce an excise tax on sugar-sweetened beverages in Sweden, since the introduction is estimated to be socio-economically viable. / I denna uppsats utförs en kostnads-nyttoanalys för att undersöka om det är samhällsekonomiskt lönsamt att införa en punktskatt på sötad dryck i Sverige. De drycker som skulle påverkas av skatten är läsk, juice, saft, energidryck, sportdryck, cider samt måltidsdryck som är sötade med socker eller naturligt innehåller en hög sockerhalt. Socker har endast negativ påverkan på vår hälsa och överkonsumtion av socker är en orsak till ett flertal sjukdomar som är vanligt förekommande idag, bland annat övervikt och karies. Övervikt ökar i sin tur risken för att drabbas av fetma, hjärt- och kärlsjukdomar, cancer, stroke och diabetes typ 2. Hälsoeffekterna av socker är kostsamma för samhället och en sockerskatt på dryck är ett möjligt styrmedel för att förbättra folkhälsan och samtidigt minska dessa kostnader. Kostnadsbesparingarna kan därefter distribueras till viktiga ändamål, exempelvis för att finansiera ytterligare strategier för en bättre hälsa hos befolkningen. Resultaten i uppsatsen visar att fördelarna av en skatt på sötade drycker hade överstigit kostnaderna, vilket går att se då nyttokostnadskvoten som beräknas uppgår till 1,47 och alltså överstiger 1. Utöver kostnads-nyttoanalysen utförs även en känslighetsanalys för att testa hur känsligt resultatet är för förändringar av värdet för olika parametrar som kommer påverkas av införandet av skatten. Känslighetsanalysen visar att resultatet är stabilt och trovärdigt då även alternativa värden leder till en nyttokostnadskvot som överstiger 1. Resultatet används som grund för en rekommendation om att införa en punktskatt på sötade drycker i Sverige, då införandet är samhällsekonomiskt lönsamt.

5 Abstract: This thesis addresses to the cigarette demand and excise tax on cigarettes in the Czech Republic The aim is to describe behavior of smokers and especially their reaction to the changes in price of cigarettes. Data for household spending are used for this purpose. First part of this thesis is dedicated to description of the cigarette market and socio-demographic characteristics of smokers. Second part concerns with question whether smokers are rational or myopic and how price elastic is their behavior. Then the rest of the thesis describes excise tax payment mechanism and analyzes excise duty incomes. The thesis finds that cigarettes are more affordable these days than in the beginning of 90's. Czech smokers do not fully realize future impact of their behavior and they seem to be very inelastic witch respect to price. The price elasticity was estimated on value -0.2. Given low price elassticitty and increasing purchasing power, the current cigarette excise tax is considered to be too low. Keywords: Excise tax on tobacco, Smoking, Cigarettes, Tobacco, Rational addiction, tobacco consumption of households, Cigarette prices