Hiscock R, Branston JR, McNeill A, et al. Tobacco industry strategies undermine government tax policy: evidence from commercial data. Tobacco Control 2018;27:488-497.
In the original article there was an error in the calculation of Value Added Tax (VAT). We calculated the VAT sales tax that is applicable to tobacco sales in the UK as a proportion of the final sales price rather than as a proportion of the pre-VAT price, leading to a slight over-estimation of the size of the tax and hence an underestimation of the industry’s revenues. For example, in December 2012 the average price for a pack of premium cigarettes was £6.85. We originally calculated the VAT liable to be £1.37 but the correct VAT liable was £1.14. Thus, the industry revenue was underestimated by about 23 p: originally the net revenue was calculated as £1.41 whereas the corrected net revenue was £1.64. This error does not change the…