Doing a calculation of just us at N2D we came up with a factual figure of £12,500 tax per year that we DON'T pay the UK Gov ... that's helluva lot of money we've saved. It's not that we don't pay tax because we do ... we just pay it in the EU and not the UK. Now we've been doing that for 10 years plus so you can see how it adds up ... and remember that's just the 3 of us here ... and it's legitimate. There's no counterfeit or white van man purchases at N2D ... period! We just buy our cigarettes/tobacco in the EU ... EU Duty Paid.
I can safely add another £20,000 per year UK tax not paid by friends and family but it will be higher than that as l've only included those that l know on how much they smoke.
So, what about you and your friends/family? How much tax doesn't go to the UK?
Let us know how much you and your friends/family save per year and l'll total it up. Reckon that'll upset the anti-smoking fascists!
There's a little price calculator
here for 'sin' taxes h/t Blocked Dwarf. It doesn't do RYO tobacco but for every 50g pouch just times it by '11' .
Total so far ...
£32,500, £33,500 £35,500 £69,450 £74,350 £78,826 £391,168 £396,618, £400,118, £410,118 £432,118 £440,118 £446,118 £546,118 £557,268 £568,509 £580,509 £586,009 £596,009 £602,009 £644,009 £647,509 £885,109 £891,609 £895,909 £899,909 £909,909 £917,409 £932,409 £949,409 £953,634 per year.
about 2 pouches a week so l'd say a grand
ReplyDelete2k for me and our lass
ReplyDeleteJust so you can work it out. The total tax take on a 50gr pouch of hand rolling tobacco is £220 / Kilo or £11.00 per pouch. This is made up of £164.11 Excise duty and about £55 VAT (brand dependent). Belgian tax is about €48 per Kilo (+ €10 VAT) €58 per Kilo or just under €3 per pouch (£2.40). Work it out yourselves
ReplyDeletebobi
You boys keep it up and Cameron/ Clegg will need to think more carefully before sending our young paople to be slaughtered in illegal wars, They may take a wage cut themselves but thats unlikely, more probably chop A WACK OF THE NHS.
DeleteEvery other EEC country has unhindered cross border shopping apart from the UK AND PADDYLAND.
THE TWO MOST CORRUPT CONTRIES IN THE EEC
Ex prime ministers retiring on millions in compo, Thatcher has cost the taxpayer millions on security alone, Charlie Haughey died a multi millionaire in Eire
I've been keeping a spreadsheet for a little over two years now, myself, immediate family and two or three friends (plus their spouses) as we all tend to travel together.
ReplyDeleteSo far, at £27,950 tax not paid to 'Call Me Dave' Cameron, and out again on Sunday, should be about six kilo coming back then, plus a few fags.
To make this easier to put into perspective, how many SS (sorry, UKBA/UKBF) annual salaries would this be?
ReplyDeleteGO HERE and it will do the math for you! http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/news/article-1633429/Calculator-tax-pay-beer-wine-cigarettes-spirits.html
ReplyDeletePut me down for ₤6k a year.
PS just noticed that the calculator doesn't do rolling tobacco but most , if not all, RYO Smokers know how many packs of straights they smoke a day on average when they can't or won't smoke RYO so they could put that figure in and that would still be a fairly accurate representation of the tax lost.
ReplyDeleteSorry it doesn't work that way. The tax on RYO Pipe tobaccos and cigars is fairly simple so much a Kilo plus VAT. However you need a degree in astro-physics to understand cigarette taxes. Cigarettes are taxed more than RYO which is taxed more than pipe tobacco. With cigars its plain highway robbery. bobi
DeleteBobi, I'm aware it doesn't 'work that way' and that the 'x11' solution is more accurate..but its only more accurate in its own inaccuracy. The whole thing is totally inaccurate- for example I bought 50 UK Duty Paid Marlboro because I didn't fancy tubing a load of EU Duty paid smokes in advance of driving..and yes I almost fainted when the local store charged me the better part of ₤8 a pack! Those are the first UK Duty Paid I have bought since the start of February and they will be the last for a while...a fucking long while.
DeleteHowever I'll lay money that most of the people answering this 'survey' have also bought some UK Duty Paid at some point during the last 12 months...if only straights to smoke on the drive down to the ferry.
So even without the changes to Duty/VAT/Retail Prices and the value of the currency in general the figures people are giving are guestimates.
Some maybe very precise guestimates but still not a totally accurate representation.
My 'use how many straights you smoke' solution was just a hurried suggestion to save on some math and would have been as an accurate representation of *intent* or of *probably damage done* as any.
Sorry didn't mean to upset you, and yes I had to buy duty paids when P&O cancelled the boat on me , never again!!!
DeleteHowever I love the idea of tax stickers sent to the Chancellor. I keep mine in case the gestapo turn up at the door (they have in the past)what we need is a central collection point showing how much the current rates of taxation are costing the UK exchequer I would much rather pay Belgian rates of tax to the UK taxman! if they can live with those rates why can't we????? Ypur ideas welcome as ever
bobi
The maths are close enough ... compared to ASH's & DoH's they are accurate to one million decimal points! :) £400,118 so far lol
Delete"compared to ASH's & DoH's they are accurate to one million decimal points! "
DeleteSh, compared to anything ASH puts out a Grimms Fairy Tale has more basis in reality!
Bobi, no i wasn't upset- not sure how it could have sounded that way. Probably just my having to think in this 'T shirt slogan' language (ie English) of yours.
PS- I couldn't NEVER be pissed at Bobi, not after he provided us with that brilliant FOI (the 'update' to the SBC FOI). That was something I should have thought to do.
DeleteThe Bobi-FOI addendum needs to become the 'gold standard'-the main download....when SH gets time to set it up.
PPS....I think I managed to get a Hessian Triple Negative in that first sentence. Go me!
DeleteThank you I'm glad you're not pissed off , I put it down to twitter english trying to get the message across in as few characters as possible.
Deletebobi
The irony is, I don't want to be in the EU, but successive Governments have all been committed to it.
ReplyDeleteI really don't understand why politicians want to hand over power to their European superiors, but the free trade aspect of the EU is fundamental. It's not a "loophole" or "tax avoidance". We're kinda morally obliged to shop around for the cheapest prices and cheapest tax regimes.
This isn't about saving money. This is about doing our duty as citizens of the EU!
Incidentally, OT, on the last ferry trip the gang were passing time by trying to think of songs containing days of the week. I've solved the two we got stuck on.
Wednesday saints go marching in.
Thursday bluebirds over the white cliffs of Dover.
:-)
£4,700 for me . Put that in your pipe and smoke it Osbourne.
ReplyDelete4476 with the calc thingy. That makes me feel quite smug.
ReplyDelete£6246 for me and £3096 for my cousin who does a lot of the travelling.
ReplyDeleteSweet.
I've not smoked for 24 years ( won't admit that to UKBA) but SWMBO does and our two trips per year to Adinkerke cost system at least £3k pa. Started going there when Eastenders had a place behind petrol station just after Belgian border. Used to watch the " runners" putting pouches into black bin liners and laying them across boot floor before covering with cases of beer.
ReplyDeleteUp to ₤78K P.A and that's just a handful, surely not more than 30 of us, tops! Are you seeing this FOREST? The only way you can get the Smoking Ban amended, and plain packets, stopped is to call for a national boycott of UK retailers/Pubs and Bars and not waste time with HM Polls. Hit them where it hurts- right in the duckhouse.
ReplyDeleteHell Forest could start a campaign of 'every time you open a fresh pack of EU Duty Paid then send the tax sticker to the Treasury'.
Maybe then they'd wake up and smell the revenue loss!
SH and Zaphod have met our merry band of angry veterans who sail and fly as often as we can this past
ReplyDelete10 years.Untill the anti smoking hysteria hit Spain
our groups of 6-12 visited Spain up to 10 times a year.
A rough guess of stuffing the Exchequer would be in
the region of £300,000.
Currently planning to increase group sizes to 20-30
next foray YPRES and PASCHENDALE VIA CHARLRROI
If stopped by custom jobsworths asking where we've been
Reply
To show my group 100,000 graves of young Britons who
gave all for freedom,now being confiscated by our
own Kaisers and Fuhrers.
Fight on ,the ends justify the means
Men of the North
You can add another 5.5 k to the total from me.
ReplyDelete£3500 on baccy in the last 18 months
ReplyDeletelfb
This is good news, saving that much money for the mistreated smoker while keeping it from going into the hands of a hateful government that persecutes its own people for doing what is legal and of no business of government to interfere to begin with.
ReplyDeleteIf it is that large a sum and grows with every trip across the channel and back, maybe having a bar graphic on the side of the page showing just how much money's been saved would be a good reminder to everyone about doing these trips, if only to help bring down the oppressive government which profits from this onerous tax only to turn around and persecute those they tax.
Our lot keep 22 big ones from going to the treasury.
ReplyDelete8000
ReplyDeleteHerself and I smoke in excess of 40 per day each. We have not bought any significant amount of fags in the UK for about 10 years. That is, in total, some 300,000 fags. At, say, £4 per 20 fags tax, that is about £60,000 tax lost to the treasury over the last ten years. Last year alone, the treasury lost about £6,000.
ReplyDeleteI think that it is a case of, "Sod 'em". While the Spanish Gov keep pushing up the price of fags, so does the UK. It amazes me that non-smokers do not see the profit the be gained by importing the maximum possible 'for their own use'.
Aren't people stupid?
For a packet of cigarettes costing £7.09 the Government get £5.45
Delete₤5.45 here, ₤5.45 there and pretty soon you're talking luxury duck houses!
DeleteOn a separate note for the 'tubers' like myself among us. I've just noticed that Tesco now do tubs of tubing tobacco (at least I assume it is 'expanded'). Useful perhaps to know for those times when we've run out of EU Duty Paid and not want to pay for UK Duty 'straights'.
http://www.tesco.com/groceries/Product/Details/?id=272853576
The claim on the tin that 50g= 100 is a little optimistic I think but it still one is getting 4 packs of smokes for less than the price of two packs of Morleys.
l reckon the members, friends, old ladies of our MC can easily put 100 grand on that
ReplyDeleteAdd 10k per year for the last 2 years for our little group
DeleteER
Just back from Belgium, add another £1 150 worth of unpaid tax for me.
ReplyDeleteWe buy about 150 cartons of 200 cigs per year in Majorca and one pack of Golden Virginia (5 x 50gm pouches) plus 5 or 6 duty free cartons (which are more expensive than what we buy in the Tobacconists, but just up Euros when at the airport.
ReplyDeleteAll this is for our own use, the tobacco being for emergencies if we have had a particularly stressful 6 months (we go twice a year on holiday and stock up on cigs) and smoke more than usual!
Bought our annual supply bout a month ago during 2for1 offer. Family saved around £12000
ReplyDelete5,500k was kept from the revenoo bandits cos l bought from Adinkerke. Have done it every year for past 6 years.
ReplyDeleteI thought that people might be interested in this info from F2C:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.freedom2choose.info/news_viewer.php?id=1355
It seems that the Gov have lost some £16 billion over the past five years in tobacco tax revenue as a result of illicit tobacco. Note that those figures relate only to revenue lost to illicit tobacco and do not include cross-border shopping. How much more should be added as a result of shopping abroad? We ourselves have accounted for half a million between a handful of us.
10k
ReplyDeleteWell Simon over at Talking Liberties for Forest claims he's doing more for tobacco smokers by way of tobacco companies than anyone else on the planet and he won't take critical comments anymore on his website denying what he calls a fact, that tobacco companies are doing so much. Right. They couldn't even care about border agents seizing cars, yet tobacco companies are doing so much. Give me a break Simon.
ReplyDeleteClark is a quisling and anyone who follows him is a bloody fool. He's taking a hammering over at Frank's place too. l mean ffs, who believes this shit about doing lots to help smokers behind the scenes? He doesn't smoke, likes that cow Arnott, supports Welsh Gov about smoking in cars, xborder shopping is not an issue. Oh just fuck off!
ReplyDeleteI forgot :-)
ReplyDeleteWe save £4500 on tax so that'd be about £6000 that these corrupt bastards in power don't get.
"He doesn't smoke, likes that cow Arnott, supports Welsh Gov about smoking in cars, xborder shopping is not an issue"
ReplyDeleteHe also doesn't like anyone calling a spade a spade: "As I have said many times, repeated references to a totalitarian regime that slaughtered six million Jews is inappropriate and embarrassing in relation to tobacco control. In terms of building support for our cause, it is entirely counter-productive." -Simon The Smokers Friend.
Yet he seems happy that ASH can use terms such as 'denormalization'
Clarks getting a hammering again over at Franks. Frank says Arnott and crew are Nazis and should be called so. Clark is a Chamberlain, we need a Churchill.
ReplyDelete7 grand in total :-)
ReplyDeleteThe last time I bought cigarettes/tobacco in the U.K. was 1985. So I reckon that I have saved a fortune.
ReplyDeleteAt today's rates I save about £1200 a year.
My partner the same and my sister the same.
So 3 of us in this household save about £3500.00 a year.
I don't remember the prices in previous years, but I guess that in total we must have saved over £80,000.00 between us.
We take 30 people a time twice a month with avg of 3kg per person. l make that 237,600 or thereabouts.
ReplyDeleteam i allowed to bring 3 kilos ov bacca back still
ReplyDeletecan i still bring back 3 kilos ov tobbacco back from belguim as presonal use ? if so how do i explain to customs if get stopped ?
ReplyDeleteYou can bring as much back as you like for personal use and gifts ... period! Lokk at info at top of page.
DeleteIf you go to Krakow for your L&B`s, do not go to Grodzka 13, they charge 129 Zl for 200, walk down the road to Grodzka 59, their price is 118 Zl for 200, its 118 Zl in Katowice Airport too, there were an abundance of L&B yesterday but no Superkings to be seen anywhere
ReplyDeleteCheers mate for the info. Poland can be a bit hit and miss.
DeleteI think how often one travels has a bearing on the amount of tobacco one can claim for personal use.
ReplyDeleteWe go to Adinkerke at 6 monthly intervals and normally bring back 3,400 cigs and 2k of rolling baccy.
This equates to 19 tailor made cigs per day plus about 14 rolled cigs per day. We use tubes and get 62 cigs from 50g pouch.
33 cigs per day, between 2, is not unreasonable.
Nothings unreasonable if it's for personal use and gifts. My bro smokes 1 pouch a day so he usually buys around 8kg of tobacco every 6 months or so. Don't like this use of how often you travel as they only use it to their advantage. They dont take into account which countries you've been in or prices there. l travel when l want and where l want ... and buy my smokes when l get them at best price and when l need them.
DeleteAs we have to travel using own car ( 350 mile round trip} one has to err on the side of caution. I don't smoke ( SWMBO does) so we could live with the old guide amount for two people.
DeleteIt's interesting that the guide amounts for alcohol weren't reduced.
And so you should John. Customs seemingly like to make people suffer and disregard their own procedures about seizing cars. lndeed some of them think it's funny to seize vehicles according to the mail we receive. lnsurance against this would seem to be carrying children 5yrs old or younger and senior citizens who have health problems.
DeleteFollowing the advice from this site I feel well prepared for our Adinkerke run in 4 weeks time.
DeleteWe've been taking cars to France for 47 years and never had a problem with customs. Last Novembers experience with a 30 year old UKBA agent just showed us how their standards have dropped.
He was determined to show that he had the power over a politely spoken 76 year old. I was actually biting my tongue to stop me pointing out the stupidity of some of his statements. He was obviously working from a script but didn't have the ability to vary it to suit circumstances.
We saved six and a half thousand pounds this past year.
ReplyDeleteDid a run from Dover to Calais last weekend, returned with 16 kilo of tobacco, was stopped, the bloke that dealt with me was polite well mannered. Mentioned the website as one does, lol, explained tax in uk etc was reason for buying overseas. Quiet happy to let me through with what I had, he did comment that a record would be made as to the amount etc, but all in all a good result!
ReplyDeletelfb
Excellent!
Delete"Quiet happy to let me through with what I had, he did comment that a record would be made as to the amount etc"
ReplyDeleteI put in an SAR for that reason. On my last Baccy Trip to Hoek the UKBA Officer said the same thing...about making a note. Thing is, SH has shown time and time again that the UKBA knowingly LIE on their records and I don't want to be stopped in Harwich on my next trip in 3 weeks time and be told that "In February you brought back 30kg" when it was only 3!
The Donny's experience (see recent post) proved that the Brothers Grimm could write more accurate fucking notes than the UKBA.
Thanks for the heads up due to other commitments can't do SAR till thurs, but one will deffo be going in.
ReplyDeletelfb
me n my m8s save bout 10 grand
ReplyDelete£7500 per annum
ReplyDeleteMy family and friends save about 15k
ReplyDeleteMe n my mates bout 17 k
ReplyDeleteGarry saved £4225. Wow !!!
ReplyDeleteGarry