Courtesy of a 'tweet' by Ian Parker-Joseph I came across this story and for those readers who are not conversant in Czech, courtesy of Google, a (kind of) translation of the link can be viewed here.
The Tobacco Manufacturers’ Association (TMA) is the trade association for tobacco companies that operate in the United Kingdom. Their members are British American Tobacco UK Ltd, Gallaher Ltd (a member of the JTI Group of companies) and ImperialTobacco Ltd. To take British American Tobacco as an example, they have subsidiary companies and factories in dozens of countries across Africa, Asia, Latin America and continental Europe. In total their subsidiary companies produce some 724 billion cigarettes through 50 cigarette factories in 41 countries.
From the Tobacco Manufacturers Association' website comes this table:
| RRP £ per 20 | Tax Burden £ per 20 | Tax Incidence % | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ireland | 7.00 | 5.52 | 79% | ||
| UK | 6.29 | 4.83 | 77% | ||
| France | 4.61 | 3.71 | 80% | ||
| Sweden | 4.28 | 3.07 | 72% | ||
| Netherlands | 4.16 | 3.04 | 73% | ||
| Denmark | 4.10 | 3.07 | 75% | ||
| Germany | 4.08 | 3.02 | 74% | ||
| Belgium | 3.99 | 3.05 | 76% | ||
| Finland | 3.63 | 2.85 | 79% | ||
| Austria | 3.30 | 2.41 | 73% | ||
| Malta | 3.30 | 2.51 | 76% | ||
| Italy | 3.05 | 2.29 | 75% | ||
| Luxembourg | 3.03 | 2.12 | 70% | ||
| Portugal | 2.88 | 2.28 | 79% | ||
| Spain | 2.80 | 2.19 | 78% | ||
| Greece | 2.64 | 2.26 | 86% | ||
| Cyprus | 2.32 | 1.68 | 72% | ||
| Slovenia | 2.06 | 1.56 | 76% | ||
| Czech | 2.02 | 1.58 | 79% | ||
| Slovakia | 2.00 | 1.66 | 83% | ||
| Romania | 1.88 | 1.56 | 83% | ||
| Lithuania | 1.82 | 1.40 | 77% | ||
| Latvia | 1.77 | 1.44 | 81% | ||
| Hungary | 1.75 | 1.38 | 79% | ||
| Bulgaria | 1.73 | 1.54 | 89% | ||
| Estonia | 1.68 | 1.39 | 83% | ||
| Poland | 1.57 | 1.36 | 86% |
This table shows the price and tax burden of 20 cigarettes in the Most Popular Price Category (MPPC) in each of the 27 Member States – it is not a comparison of the same brand.
The price and tax burden shown is primarily based on information contained in the European Commission’s publication Excise Duty Tables. Part III – Manufactured Tobacco, July 2010 and the exchange rates published in the Financial Times for the 1 July 2010
As an aside, when I was in Northern Cyprus a couple of years ago 20 Marlboro Red were 2.5 Turkish dollars for a pack of 20 (conversion rate 2.5 Dollars = £1)
Remembering the British American Tobacco 'stats' - and also remembring an important factor, that this was just for one company - that is an awful lot of tax that the EU is 'inhaling'. It is also worth remembering that the 'income' that this tax produces no doubt goes towards funding things like health, defence (oh and the EU official's salaries?). So where is the 'replacement' income coming from when their dream of the numbers of people smoking has been drastically reduced or completely eradicated???
Just a thought..........
3 comments:
So it costs £1.48 (pretax) to make a pack of 20 cigarettes for sale in Ireland. But only 21pence to make a pack for sale in Poland - where the tax rate is actually 7% higher but the pack sells for £1.57 inclusive.
I know duty is a fixed sum not a percentage but there has to be something odd about that table or they would be selling Polish made cigarettes in Ireland for £5.73.
Cancer sticks anyway - better off without 'em.
Woodsy42 - there may well be something odd about the table - just look at the source!
James, odd you should say that. Attended a funeral of a friend yesterday - died at 81 from cancer and never smoked in his life!
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