{"id":266,"date":"2021-10-12T13:42:04","date_gmt":"2021-10-12T13:42:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.retailersagainstsmuggling.ie\/?p=266"},"modified":"2025-04-29T10:21:44","modified_gmt":"2025-04-29T10:21:44","slug":"budget-2022-response","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.retailersagainstsmuggling.ie\/index.php\/2021\/10\/12\/budget-2022-response\/","title":{"rendered":"Tobacco excise increase fails to stem spiralling black-market activity – Budget 2022"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Retailers Against Smuggling (RAS)<\/a> has expressed its apprehension over how yet another excise increase on tobacco is set to further fuel a rapidly growing black market. The group was reacting to Budget 2022 announced by the Minister for Finance, Paschal Donohoe TD which included an increase of 50c on tobacco, bringing the cost of an average packet of 20 cigarettes to \u20ac15.00.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Commenting on the direct impact to legitimate registered retailers, National Spokesperson for Retailers Against Smuggling, Benny Gilsenan said: \u201cIt\u2019s very disappointing to see an excise increase in Budget 2022 which will inevitably make it even harder for retailers like myself to compete against the rapidly growing black market in Ireland. Ireland continues to be a key target for tobacco smugglers as a result of having one of the highest rates of duty on tobacco products in the EU, resulting in unfair competition for Irish retailers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe fully expect that this\nlatest excise increase will drive more Irish smokers to the black market with\ncriminal gangs exploiting the demand for illicit tobacco products. This will\ninevitably lead to a growth in large-scale smuggling activity and ant smuggling.\nUltimately this means retailers will continue to suffer not only through the\nloss of the legal purchase of cigarettes but also any additional purchases that\nperson might make when they are in the store. It is regrettable that the\nMinister Donohoe has ignored the warning made by both retailers and the Department\nof Finance Tax Strategy Group that an excise increase could encourage more\nsmokers to source products outside of the State.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To date this year, Revenue <\/a>has announced 49 major tobacco seizures, including the seizure of over 40 million cigarettes, with an estimated retail value of under \u20ac49m representing a potential loss to the exchequer of over \u20ac39m.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr Gilsenan concluded: \u201cThe\ndetection and seizure of illegal tobacco products must remain a priority for\nIrish authorities, with increased awareness of the elaborate means criminal\ngangs are utilising to transport these huge volumes. In the context of excise\ngoods, there needs to be greater focus on rendering existing enforcement\nregulations more robust by introducing attachment orders to violations, thereby\nproviding the means to the State to recoup losses to the Exchequer driven by\nsmuggling.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Retailers Against Smuggling (RAS) has expressed its apprehension over how yet another excise increase on tobacco is set to further fuel a rapidly growing black market. The group was reacting to Budget 2022 announced by the Minister for Finance, Paschal Donohoe TD which included an increase of 50c on tobacco, bringing the cost of an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":268,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cigarette-smuggling","category-illicit-cigarettes"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.retailersagainstsmuggling.ie\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.retailersagainstsmuggling.ie\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.retailersagainstsmuggling.ie\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.retailersagainstsmuggling.ie\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.retailersagainstsmuggling.ie\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=266"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.retailersagainstsmuggling.ie\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":568,"href":"https:\/\/blog.retailersagainstsmuggling.ie\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266\/revisions\/568"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.retailersagainstsmuggling.ie\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.retailersagainstsmuggling.ie\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.retailersagainstsmuggling.ie\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.retailersagainstsmuggling.ie\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}