Taxes as instruments of health-related sports policy in European countries

Abstract

The need to modify current sedentary lifestyle of developed countries’ citizens seems indisputable. Promotion of physical activity is considered to be clue part of ati-obesity or anti-cancer government programmes. For that reason, all European countries run Sports for all policy – a part of sports policy, that is focused on active lifestyle popularization. Due to economic and policy literature, taxes – if properly designed – are appropriate instruments to influence human behavior. There is a long history of those measures, starting from excise and ecological taxes and ending with gaining popularity sugar taxes. However, it seems politically unfavorable and therefore unlikely to introduce taxation on inactivity. As a result, the use of tax systems in a physical activity promotion is usually based on incentives, encouraging people to do sports. In this study, the role of tax measures in sports for all policy of European countries was assessed. For the purposes of this article, data was collected from European Commission Taxation and Customs Taxes in Europe Database v3. It was expected, that modern countries would use that kind of instruments commonly. The analysis of tax system showed, that usage of that type of tax measures in political practice of European countries is very limited. Only a few tax instruments used to promote active sport participation of citizens were detected. There were six types of measures used in personal income taxation and one kind in value added taxation. Most of the countries used one or no instrument of that type. Top usage of tax incentives was three measures and only two countries adapted that many. One of the reasons may be lack of evidence-based research, proving their effectiveness. This study may be a basis for such research.