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Just been announced on the news that customs have been told to lay off legitimate cross channel travellers and their property (Good move and thanks to Hoverspeed). But they are laying down new "allowances" and muddying the waters IMHO. There are no allowances, you can bring in any amount of duty paid goods from anywhere in the EU, so long as it is for your personal consumption. At least Hitler-you-don't-like now has to prove that it is your intention to sell on, this is a step in the right direction but it does not alter the fact that there are no legal limits, only non-enforceable and notlegally backed guidelines. What is the position now for people who have their goods and cars seized in the last couple of years?
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The limit has been raised four fold to 3,200 cigarettes. This is far more reasonable. The amounts to 6 months choke for a 20 a dayer. There has to be a limit set, but not a draconian one, and not one that penalised normal people and made them lose their cars. I wonder if a class action will be brought by all the people who lost their cars after bringing in >800 but <3200 fags?
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Anyone know what the "limits" are?
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The news item (on TV) said cigarettes up from 800 to 3200 and rolling tobacco up from 1kg to 3kg. No mention about alcohol - to be fair the present "guidelines" NOT "Limits" or "Allowances" are quite generous and 2 adults in a normal car couldn't get their entitled amount in - neither in terms of weight nor volume. I agree it is an improvement but we are being patronised by a Government that tries to give the impression it is doing us a favour when, in fact, it is still in breach of EU law ie There are no limits!
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"There has to be a limit set"
Why?
The whole point of the EU (apart from the politics, etc.) is the creation of a common market without trade barriers, leading to the eventual harmonisation of duty rates.
A German can go across the border to France and bring back as much booze and fags as he can carry. And do it twice a day if he wished.
Why should a Briton not be able to do the same?
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"Why?"
Supports government policy in encouraging people to live healthier lives
Enables smaller, local shops in the UK to continue in business through the selling of tobacco rather than being undercut by a bloke down the pub.
If there is an eventual harmonisation of taxes in the EU it is more likely to lead to these taxes being harmonised with current UK policy, not the other way around.
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Actually, Tim, the policy acts against small UK shops.
With lower duty, 100% of UK tobacco sales would go through UK shops.
With present duty rates, only two thirds of it goes through UK retailers, IIRC., the other third via the bloke down the pub.
Drop duty and UK sales would increase by fifty percent.
Agree on the health issue, though, but high duty is not the way to achieve that, either.
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Agree that 100% of tobacco sales would go through UK shops if lower duty, but not convinced that this would be entirely beneficial for smaller local shops. At present margins on tobacco relatively small and therefore supermarkets can't undercut smaller shops by a huge margin. If duty cut, margins are bigger and price differential larger. Most smaller shops rely on tobacco sales to draw customers in and current price difference sufficiently small to encourage this. Not sure if this makes sense or is true, it's just an observation in my strange world!
Tim
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"If duty cut, margins are bigger and price differential larger. "
Surely not.
A (say) £1.50 per packet cut would affect small shops and supermarkets to exactly the same extent, the price would come down by that amount, margins in cash terms (which when I was last involved was about 20p per packet) would stay the same and competition would be unaffected.
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Tim
Encouraging people to live healthier lives has nothing to do with it. If it did, tobacco would have been banned years ago. It's really about maximising revenue to the exchequer.
Within the EU there's supposed to be a single market. By definition, a single market means that duty paid in one EU country allows (or should allow) free movement of the goods throughout the Union. Therefore any HM C&E limits are artificial and although Hoverspeed seem to have lost the plot as far as their core business (transporting people across La Manche) is concerned, they've got it right on this one.
When (and if) we get harmonisation of duty levels (ie we can buy 5 litres of wine for < £4 in the UK, and diesel costs 50p a litre (motoring link)) this whole debacle will be unnecessary.
And yes, harmonisation would mean a lowering of UK duties because of what the French/Italians/Spanish would do if theirs were raised!
Terry
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"Encouraging people to live healthier lives has nothing to do with it. If it did, tobacco would have been banned years ago.
It's really about maximising revenue to the exchequer."
- If that is the case then why is tobacco advertising being banned???? Surely if it's about maximising revenue then advertising should be allowed to continue? Demand is not completely inelastic and therefore taxes remain a good instrument of gov't in this respect, which should be used to improve public transport (motoring link!)
"A (say) £1.50 per packet cut would affect small shops and supermarkets to exactly the same extent, the price would come down by that amount, margins in cash terms (which when I was last involved was about 20p per packet) would stay the same and competition would be unaffected"
- not necessarily. At the moment, the duty on tobacco forms a large amount of the total cost of the product. By reducing the proportion of duty paid, the price probably wouldn't come by the same amount in both small shops and supermarkets due to different pricing strategies?
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how much did advertising sell cigerettes? More of it is down to peer pressure. Its not as if I saw an advert and thought that'll be a good idea.
Its already cheaper to buy cigerretes from supermarkets, but its more conveinent at the local shops. If duty was cut and certain shops tried to increase there profit people would start shopping elseware eg Sainsburys £2, local shop £3 i'd buy them in bulk at sainsburys
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"Encouraging people to live healthier lives has nothing to do with it. If it did, tobacco would have been banned years ago. It's really about maximising revenue to the exchequer." - If that is the case then why is tobacco advertising being banned????
It's called lip service Tim and when you get old and cynical like me you'll recognise it too.
:o)
Terry
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Britons cannot do the same because they are led by a bunch of self-serving, image and spin conscious idiots. Our leaders would rather strut about the world stage and start a war, than stay at home and sort out trains, pensions, health service, crime rates,etc(no particular order). We'd like to be First World but a lot of our services are Third world and sinking fast!
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They haven't made ANY changes for booze, only smokes.
The EU regulations say you can bring in as much as you want for personal use. Why do some people think increased limits imposed by C&E are 'reasonable' when the EU says there are NO limits?
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