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In the corona crisis, people do not smoke less, but in other places, for example more at home than on the way to work, in train stations, airports or other transportation hubs. In western Austria, due to travel restrictions due to Covid-19, fewer cigarettes were sold this year because the Germans or Swiss could rarely stock up on relatively cheap products here; more in the east because fewer tobacco products were brought in from abroad. “Austrians are buying more domestically this year,” Prirschl said. In 2019, 14 to 15 percent of total cigarette volume was not taxed in Austria, Lothert says.
The state received around 1.9 billion euros from tobacco tax in 2019, including VAT, 2.4 billion euros. Tobacco sales by tobacconists amounted to 3,150 million euros. This year until June 27 million euros more in tobacco tax was collected than in the same period of 2019. The closing month of April stood out with an increase in income of 13 percent. The reason was border closures, since it was almost impossible to import cigarettes from abroad, according to a press release from the Ministry of Finance. In 2019, 13.6 billion cigarettes were smoked in Austria: 1,700 per inhabitant per year and almost 5 “glow sticks” per day for every Austrian.
