Abstract
BACKGROUND: The main advantage of tax-based financing is its sustainability, as well as the participation of all members of society, regardless of their health status, risk pooling, and the spread of risk among members of society. Therefore, the aim of the present study is a comprehensive review of sustainable tax-based financing strategies in the health system. METHODS: In this scoping review based on PRISMA-ScR guidelines, PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, ProQuest, and Google Scholar were searched by the keywords of sustainable financing and tax-based financing in the healthcare system without time limitation in August 2024. Finally, the thematic content analysis method was used to extract the strategies of sustainable tax-based financing in MS Word 2016. RESULTS: The initial search in the selected databases retrieved 10083 records, of which 24 ones from them were related to the research aim. Most of the reviewed studies were performed in 2018 (16%) in the USA (18%) with a literature review method (38%). The main strategies for sustainable tax-based financing in healthcare systems include direct and indirect taxes. CONCLUSION: The results showed that income tax and direct taxes are more progressive than taxes on consumer goods and services and indirect taxes in general. It is necessary for each country to consider sustainable tax-based financing solutions for its health system. Using the combined methods of receiving direct and indirect taxes can be another key solution in this regard.