New plans to tackle the illicit tobacco trade have been published by HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC).
Under the new strategy, supported by the UK Border Agency, the Government has provided more cash for more officers to target organised criminals who smuggle tobacco. There will be says the Government more numbers of prosecutions, more illicit tobacco will be seized, and smugglers will face what the authorities term fresh hard-hitting financial sanctions. Minimum indicative levels for travellers bringing tobacco into the UK from the EU will also be reduced, aligning the UK with levels elsewhere in Europe.
Justine Greening, Economic Secretary to the Treasury, said: โThe Government believes that tobacco smuggling must be tackled head on. Tobacco fraud costs taxpayers more than £2bn a year, depriving the public of revenue to fund vital public services.โ
โWe have made an additional £917m available to HMRC to tackle evasion, avoidance and criminal fraud across the tax system, and that includes illicit trading in tobacco. Those who think that tobacco smuggling is a quick, easy and risk free crime that will go unchallenged, are making a serious mistake.โ
Changes under the new strategy include:
– increasing criminal intelligence and investigation resources deployed on tobacco fraud by 20pc to prosecute more of those involved in smuggling at all levels;
– expanding the UK overseas network of fiscal crime liaison officers to increase seizures of illicit cigarettes targeted on the UK by 20pc;
– introducing new technology, intelligence and detection capability to improve our ability to respond more flexibly at the border and inland;
– pursuing proceeds of crime and applying new powers of assessment and penalties, including recovering lost taxes and charging penalties up to 100pc of the tax evaded;
– reducing the minimum indicative levels for personal imports to 800 cigarettes and 1 kg hand-rolling tobacco in the autumn, bringing the UK into line with all other EU Member States. These levels are used as a guide for determining whether tobacco products imported from the EU are for personal use.
HMRCโs renewed tobacco strategy โTackling Tobacco Smuggling: Building on our Successโ can be seen at: http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/news/tackling-tobacco.htm
An additional £917m was made available to HMRC at the spending review in 2010 to tackle avoidance, evasion and fraud. Part of that investment will provide additional resources to increase enforcement activity to tackle tobacco smuggling.
Latest available estimates for 2008/09 show revenue losses from illicit cigarettes and hand-rolling tobacco were about £2.2bn. HMRC launched its first tobacco strategy in 2000. Since that time, working with UKBA, it has seized more than 20 billion smuggled cigarettes with a value of around £4.5bn in legitimate lost sales and more than 2,700 tonnes of hand-rolling tobacco. More than 3,300 people have been successfully prosecuted and more than £48m of confiscation orders have been issued to recover the proceeds of crime. The UK illicit market for cigarettes has been reduced by almost half since 2000 (from 21 per cent and rising, to 11 per cent).
