Dear Mr. ####,
I received a response to your query from the responsible person in the UK. I do apologize for the delay in our response:
Thank you for your email.
As you’ll be aware, in the European Union customers are permitted to buy tobacco products in a certain Member State for personal use and to bring these back to their home State without having to pay additional excise duty on them.
Indicative volumes exist for this. For the UK , the volumes are set at 3,200 cigarettes or 3kg of fine cut tobacco.
HMRC has been checking tobacco products that are brought into the UK from other Member States for some time and has observed that more products than these indicative volumes are often purchased.
Furthermore, it has noted that these are then sold on in the UK , which of course is not permitted.
Imperial Tobacco is totally opposed to illicit trade and has therefore made an agreement with HMRC for a number of years to cooperate on ending these illegal imports.
Fines of up to £5 million can be imposed on manufacturers if their products are seized by HMRC as a result of allegedly over-supplying the legitimate trade overseas.
Demand for Golden Virginia in Belgium , which is popular among English tourists, has recently increased sharply. Imperial Tobacco Belgium has thus decided to freeze the volumes that are sold to wholesalers at the average level in previous months.
We realise that these measures create a significant inconvenience for the Belgian traders who sell these products and legitimate cross-border shoppers. However, our quotas are determined as objectively as possible.
In addition, you make reference in your email to our prices across EU markets.
For the most part, maximum prices are set locally by manufacturers in each market depending on the level of taxation and the overall market conditions.
Kind regards
################Pressereferent
Reemtsma Cigarettenfabriken GmbH An Imperial Tobacco Group CompanyKommunikation und Politik Max-Born-Straße 4 22761 Hamburg Reply
Dear ####,
thank you for your reply although it would have been nice to know who exactly was replying to me. My question about pricing in EU States was to find what your products sell for in various EU states. l find it incomprehensible that you say that you don't know.
Would you please forward the following reply to Mr/Mrs/Ms lncognito
Thank you,
#########
l would like to draw your attention to some points.
Indicative limits are suggested limits and not statutory limits.I'm sure you can google the word 'indicative' if you are not sure. Whether indicative limits exist or not has no bearing whatsoever on EU law. Shoppers are allowed to purchase as much as they like for personal use. This is their right as an EU citizen. Simply because amounts are over this indicative limit does certainly not mean that they are smuggled. HMRC hope that by limiting the amounts shoppers purchase makes it not feasible or a substantial inconvenience to shoppers to make multiple trips.
Have you at all considered that your market has increased in the EU is because myself and others like me are telling UK shoppers their rights to shop within the EU so more and more are now doing this? Would it also surprise you that the amounts purchased by shoppers are not in container loads but merely a maximum of a years supply that fits into a suitcase? We are not tourists, we are shoppers. The tourist trade is completely different to the shopping trade which is increasing. Why can't you grasp the concept of this?
You say HMRC has noted that tobacco has been sold in the UK which has been bought in the EU? This beggars the question why haven't HMRC arrested and prosecuted these people instead of simply noting it?
You also state :-" Imperial Tobacco is totally opposed to illicit trade and has therefore made an agreement with HMRC for a number of years to cooperate on ending these illegal imports" and "Fines of up to £5 million can be imposed on manufacturers if their products are seized by HMRC as a result of allegedly over-supplying the legitimate trade overseas"
Made an agreement and co-operated? Surely you mean that you were blackmailed and caved into their threats of ..... "a fine up to £5 million can be imposed on manufacturers if their products are seized as a result of allegedly over-supplying the legitimate trade overseas" (you mean EU? overseas has a different meaning entirely)
l've highlighted the important words and any lawyer will tell you the significance of these words or rather insignificance. You see, us shoppers face these threats constantly by HMRC when we bring our legitimate purchases back to the UK. Added to these threats are intimidation, harassment and pure theft but unlike you we stand our ground and say 'No!'
(You omitted in your reply to comment about what shoppers have to suffer in order to purchase tobacco for their own personal legitimate use at the hands of HMRC. Maybe you could ask them about their unethical and unjust tactics used against your customers?)
As for the illegal trade ... are you or your new friends, the HMRC, incapable or incompetent of tracing large shipments like container and lorry loads delivered to your distributors? lt should be relatively simple to do.You say on your own website that you constantly monitor your distributors????
Except that isn't it, is it? The real reason of HMRC is to stop ALL UK brands being sold in the EU in the hope that UK shoppers will then buy their tobacco in the UK. It simply won't happen.... period. All that will happen is that UK smokers will change their preferred brand to a foreign brand and still not pay UK taxes because the amount saved runs into thousands of pounds. ln these hard times anyone that smokes that doesn't do this is plain stupid in my opinion or is physically/financially incapable of shopping abroad..
This will eventually hit your own sales and to be honest l hope it does quickly ... you deserve it in the way you have treat and ignored your loyal customer base. Smokers in the UK will transfer their loyalty to other foreign brands because it is obvious that you don't give a damn about the loyalty afforded to you by your customers over the years. l'm sure your shareholders will understand when they see their returns fall and you have to account for it. Best of luck with that.
l must leave it at that as l have to try and get something out of my back ... the knife your company stabbed me with.
Yours,
##########
Nice one SH but l doubt they'll reply now! :-)
ReplyDeleteNice one, SH...
ReplyDeleteImperial Tobacco are weak, just like CAMRA. They deserve all that's coming to them.
ReplyDeleteFrom Day tripper site:
ReplyDeleteAugust 2010 - Golden Virginia is now £3.85 in Belgium. Tobacco availability in Belgium. Following a large Customs bust when a lorry carrying a huge quantity of Amber leaf bought in Luxembourg, was stopped at Dover, the tobacco companies have been prevailed upon to restrict the sale of English tobacco in Europe. Amber leaf is very difficult to get now. We are making representations to the E.U. about this as it is a clear breach of free trade and good swithin the E.U. Now they are requiring shops in Adinkerke to serve English shoppers with the suggested guidelines only (3000 cigarettes and 3 kg rolling tobacco).
Its a stSH, well done for the letter though!
ReplyDeleteSo, there is no restriction on non UK products,
ReplyDeletestrange one that.
How come we cant restrict import of cheap labour?
Hope someone is going to stuff that Imperial
Tobacco reply down the gullets of every MEP,
Mp and any other "free trade" waffler.
Buy foreign,stuff the yellow bellied cowards.
A nation of traitors,lets help put a few more
hundred thousand on the dole.
Extreme measures.
Well done for getting a reply.
ReplyDeleteI actually got an acknowledgement today from Imperial Tobacco.
Thank you for your email which we have passed on to our corporate
officer in Belgium asking them to respond to you directly.
Kind regards
Imperial Tobacco Ltd
Head Office - Bristol, UK
I have been asking everywhere and can't get a reply to:
What hand rolling tobacco do Belgians smoke'
Let this site know what you think
ReplyDeletein English
www.flanders.be
The Free Corps
Dave Atherton
ReplyDeleteMy only connection with Imperial Tobacco is that as a satisfied customer. IT don't probably care who sells their tobacco and in what country is my guess. I once saw a programme on Dave West, it must have been well over 10 years ago and he was selling some tobacco companies by the shed load at his places in Belgium and Calais. The tobacco company piad for an all expenses paid trip to the Cannes Film Festival.
My guess is that they have been lent on by government, HMRC, Dept Health, Treasury or EU. Nothing more than Marxist central planning.
Dave Atherton
IT's reply sounds like it was written for them by HMRC. I recognise the evasion and deliberate deceit. They think they can ingratiate themselves? Get a squeaky clean image? They think the righteous and the taxman will be impressed? Surely, people who work in the tobacco industry know that there's a war on? What a sellout, they deserve what's coming.
ReplyDeleteBugger it, I'll miss them, the spineless bastards. We liked their product. But we've got enough enemies already, without them crawling to the dark side.
Superb denouement, SH. It's poor, right enough, and definitely appeasement, but tobacco companies are cocksure as they know that their customers will probably buy their product whether it's available in Belgium or not. At the moment, the threat of fines is greater than the loss of business by smokers buying unfamiliar brands.
ReplyDeleteYou've highlighted the right course of action. Buy other brands, or from other countries. It's only that which will kick such companies into action, it's a business thing and they will have sized up every possible angle.
Todays Imperial news
ReplyDelete"Bristol-based Imperial Tobacco, the world’s fourth-largest cigarette business, is to pay $300 million (£189m) to the European Commission to help stub out tobacco smuggling.
The firm, whose brands include Lambert & Butler, Rizla and Golden Virginia, today signed a co-operation agreement with the European Union to combat the illicit trade in tobacco.
Anyone who buys these products at this point in time...........IS A TRAITOR
Full stop....end of story
And that goes for any "freedom" waffling
site or blogger who fails to higlight the scam.
pissed off with budgies
bring on the Condors
Great comments guys ... and thanks
ReplyDeleteAnon .. Daytripper. You put same comment in previous post. lf you want to guest post, just ask. SH
Anon said ... "Todays Imperial news
ReplyDelete"Bristol-based Imperial Tobacco, the world’s fourth-largest cigarette business, is to pay $300 million (£189m) to the European Commission to help stub out tobacco smuggling.
The firm, whose brands include Lambert & Butler, Rizla and Golden Virginia, today signed a co-operation agreement with the European Union to combat the illicit trade in tobacco."
So they pay £189 million to the EU who can't stop the illegal cigarettes/tobacco coming in from Russia and it's satellite states and China. Does lT think that this money will make any difference to this trade? lt's farcical.
Maybe everyone here should pretend they are a smuggler and contact IT with the offer of ceasing trading for a mere £1 million each. They can then announce 189 smugglers have been stopped. Now that's good PR! :)
I got my reply today:
ReplyDeleteDear Sir,
Further to your mail sent to our corporate web-site, please allow us to give some clarifications with regard to your concerns.
Please note that we can only speak for the supplies of Golden Virginia, since the product Amber Leaf is a brand which doesn’t belong to our company.
In the European Union, customers are permitted to buy tobacco products in a certain Member State for personal use and to bring these back to their home State without having to pay additional excise duty on them.
Indicative volumes exist for this. Thus, the volumes are set at 3,200 cigarettes or 3 kg of tobacco for the UK.
The UK Customs Service has been checking tobacco products that are brought into the United Kingdom from other Member States for some time and has observed that more products than these indicative volumes are often purchased. Furthermore, it has noted that these are then sold on in England, which of course is not permitted.
Imperial Tobacco are totally opposed to illicit trade and have therefore made an agreement with the UK Customs Service for a number of years to cooperate on ending these illegal imports.
Demand for Golden Virginia (English tobacco), a product that is sold in Belgium and is bought by English tourists, has recently increased sharply.
To accommodate the UK Customs Service, Imperial Tobacco Belgium has thus decided to freeze the volumes that are sold to wholesalers at the average level in previous months.
Our quotas are defined as objectively as possible. We hope that the wholesalers in turn will distribute their volumes among their customers honestly and objectively and that you will be able to find your product in your favourite outlet whenever you visit Belgium.
Yours’ sincerely.
Kris De Baets
HR & Cora Manager
Imperial Tobacco Belgium
Schaliënhoevedreef, 20H
B-2800 Mechelen
Belgium
Witch from Essex .... very similar to mine. They have no concept of the shopper against the tourist and neither do they mention ex-pats.
ReplyDeleteThey also have no understanding of the law. They are not illegal imports, the 'crime' is when they are sold in the UK.
They also think that HMRC will now be their friends! Next HMRC will be asking then to restrict supply to Spain, France, Portugal and so on.
Ah well, stuff em .... foreign brands it is then!
I went to Adinkerke yesterday and there are restrictions on GV, CC and AL. Shops only allow one or two paks of ten of each brand, but many went from shop to shop to get all their favouite brand. Prices have also gone up, some shops more than others. The best shops sold GV for £4, CC for £3.65 and AV for £3.60. I bought some local tobacco 'Springfield' for £2.50 and is similar to CC.
ReplyDelete