The Government thinks your STUPID!

Smuggled cigarettes cost billions


The government is losing billions in VAT each year to tobacco smugglers and more resources are needed to tackle the problem, says a key Commons committee.
Customs lost around £2.9bn in Britain in 2003-2004 and the figure is expected to increase in 2004-2005.

The Committee of Public Accounts also says the estimated 12bn cigarettes smuggled into the UK pose an increased health risk to smokers.

They say a campaign is needed to expose the risks of poor quality tobacco.

"Tobacco smugglers cheat the taxpayer," said committee chairman Edward Leigh MP.
This article was copied from the BBC website, and one can assume the dates are wrong!

Well thats one view I suppose, but in all honesty, I can't believe it.

I think that the problem has been caused by the British Government!
But lets see where it takes us.....

There are smokers in the UK, and no amount of putting the prices up will make some of them stop. After all the Drugs Barons... Oops sorry the tobacco companies have been adding for years chemicals to make cigarettes more addictive.

So lets see we have little Johnny aged 35, been smoking since he left school, after all it was considered to be "Cool" to smoke. He goes abroad, and notices that the fags he has purchased so cheaply are made in the UK. So he brings some back tells his friends and before you know it everyone is bringing back ciggies, even the non smokers who re-sell them on to mates, chance of a few quid.

We are in "The Common Market", a trade agreement between coutries in Europe, which means we can, by the same silly European Laws that our own Parliament has dumped on us, legally buy as many ciggies as we want. But is the Goverment happy with this? No way!!!!, you see they want the additional tax they get when we buy ciggies from the corner shop.

After all it costs between 30 and 40 pence to produce each packet of cigarettes, the rest of the roughly £5.00 per pack price is Taxation. So the government creams off roughly £4.50 in tax and VAT.

So little Johnny thinks and thinks, and then he hires a van and buys shedloads of ciggies, after all he can buy them in European countries at less than half the price of the UK. He then sells the fags on to mates in the pub, friends of friends, little old ladies etc etc. Because the ciggies are so cheap everyone buys them, after all a pack costing £3.50 from Little Johhny is cheaper than £5.00 from the corner shop. So they are saving themselves money!

So is he a crimminal? No, he provides a service that people want. But the government don't want you to buy your ciggies of Little Johhny, so they tell you and Joe Public that Little Johhny is a part of organised crime, funding terrorists, helping the IRA, Al-Qaeda and any other lie that they think Joe Public will believe. Cause after all Joe Public is stupid, gullible and easily swayed!

Now don't get me wrong there probably are some nasty buggers out there in the big wide world, but thankfully they are few and far between. Yet your government does not want you to know this, as that doesn't keep you in line, makes you less pliable, less scared! The bogus fags that they smuggle into the country are really not more dangerous to your health than normal fags, but to try and stop people buying from Little Johhny, they are again using scare tactics, or more to the point they are telling FUCKING LIES!

But then the British government, which champions the rights of Asylum seekers, Immigants et al. Riding roughshod and led by the Politically correct brigade decide they're losing to much money, and they break the law. They issue guidelines that state each person is only permitted to bring back so many ciggies. Which is Illegal under the European Laws! One thing my Mother and Father have always said is "Two wrong's don't make a right" In other words if the Government is breaking European Laws, it cannot attack Little Johhny for breaking illegal rules!

But just supposing everyone actually stopped smoking, so no sales of ciggies, so no £4.50 in tax on every pack, coming into Government coffers. The Government is used to having all that money now, after all they have had that income for years so what will they do? Yeah you've guessed it, they will find something else to tax.