Explaining specific taxes management and use in the health sector: a qualitative study.

BMC Health Serv Res

Department of Health Management and Economics, School of Public Health, Health Information Management Research Center, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.

Published: September 2022

Background And Aim: Being the major source of revenue and essential economic tool for policymakers to improve public health, taxes contribute to government spending on the development of health care facilities and services. Given the financial challenges facing the health sector together with the public health issues that affect each society, placing specific taxes on some goods, services, and activities can be effective in this regard. The study aims to explain the various dimensions of specific taxes in the health sector and management of these resources in order to achieve the health system goals.

Materials And Methods: This study with a qualitative research design was conducted using semi-structured interviews with open-ended questions in 2020-2021. In total, 38 managers, policymakers, economists, key experts, and other individuals, as informants, were interviewed. Purposive and snowball with maximum variation was also employed. As well, content analysis was utilized to shed light on the data. The transcribed interviews were further imported into MAXQDA for extracting and classifying the relevant codes.

Findings: In this study, 5 main themes and 23 subthemes were labeled. The main themes accordingly included "Objectives and Conditions of Specific Health Taxes", "Earmarked Taxes", "Taxes on Goods and Measures of Harmful to Health", "Value-Added Taxes", and "Green Taxes".

Discussion And Conclusion: Considering the specific taxes in the health sector, i.e., taxes on goods and measures of harmful to health, value-added taxes, and green taxes, all taxation and pricing policies need to take account of the effects as well as the advantages and disadvantages of types of taxes, a country's economic structure, the conditions of industries and manufacturing enterprises, cultural aspects in society, and peoples' socioeconomic status.

Download full-text PDF

Source
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9524337PMC
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12913-022-08556-4DOI Listing

Publication Analysis

Top Keywords

specific taxes
16
health sector
16
health
10
taxes
9
public health
8
taxes goods
8
taxes health
8
main themes
8
goods measures
8
measures harmful
8

Similar Publications

Want AI Summaries of new PubMed Abstracts delivered to your In-box?

Enter search terms and have AI summaries delivered each week - change queries or unsubscribe any time!