Germany - Higher tobacco tax only helps smugglers

[v2]

Raising tobacco tax only encourages smokers to buy illegal cigarettes, according to a new customs report leaked to the media.

The report found that smokers did not respond to government health and budget policies by quitting smoking, but by "turning even more deliberately to illegal cigarettes." Customs officials found
that the increased demand for smuggled tobacco not only meant that illegal cigarettes were easier to get, but children and young people had easier access to them.

Since illegal cigarettes are not necessarily subject to quality control, they might also pose greater health risks.
It has also led to a decreased tax revenue, as the number of cigarettes sold legally in Germany be-tween 2003 and 2009 sank from 133 billion to 87 billion.

[Mdisch]

They should start Snus instead of buying illegal cigarettes... Just sayin'.

[Snusdog]

Raising tobacco tax only encourages smokers to buy illegal cigarettes, according to a new customs report leaked to the media.

The report found that smokers did not respond to government health and budget policies by quitting smoking, but by "turning even more deliberately to illegal cigarettes." Customs officials found
that the increased demand for smuggled tobacco not only meant that illegal cigarettes were easier to get, but children and young people had easier access to them.

Since illegal cigarettes are not necessarily subject to quality control, they might also pose greater health risks.
It has also led to a decreased tax revenue, as the number of cigarettes sold legally in Germany be-tween 2003 and 2009 sank from 133 billion to 87 billion.

Brilliant................just brilliant!

Its epic fail on a systemic level

[sirloot]

just like any overtaxed/prohibited/illegal item there are ways around to get the product and govt never takes black market into account. getting people to do what they dont want to do will always end in failure.

similar to SC's laws (i realy dont know the reason why its this way) say i want a bottle of whiskey ohsht its 7:01pm my options are #1 wait till tommorrow 2# goto a bar and pay 2-4x as much or #3 take a 45min drive to the NC border and pick up a bottle (liquor stores are open to 9 or 10pm) so the store not only loses out on the sale the state loses out on tax from said sale

that being said if you were on a border town in Germany and a carton was say 30 euro and over in italy etc it was 25euro what would keep people from buying elsewhere? do govts not take that into acct?

[shikitohno]

I've been saying this for a while, now. They could've learned as much from looking at Canada, and saved the money on the study. If government taxes rise to the point where a carton costs people $100 from the grocery store, but there's a guy selling $30 cartons out the back of his van in the parking lot at night, what do you think people are going to do? Governments never seem to learn that prohibition doesn't work.