{"id":693,"date":"2026-06-23T09:27:27","date_gmt":"2026-06-23T09:27:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.retailersagainstsmuggling.ie\/?p=693"},"modified":"2026-06-23T09:27:27","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T09:27:27","slug":"further-tobacco-tax-hikes-will-only-benefit-criminals-while-local-retailers-suffer-warns-ras","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.retailersagainstsmuggling.ie\/index.php\/2026\/06\/23\/further-tobacco-tax-hikes-will-only-benefit-criminals-while-local-retailers-suffer-warns-ras\/","title":{"rendered":"Further tobacco tax hikes will only\u00a0benefit\u00a0criminals while local retailers suffer, warns RAS"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"898\" height=\"595\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.retailersagainstsmuggling.ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Screenshot-2026-06-23-102630.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-697\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.retailersagainstsmuggling.ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Screenshot-2026-06-23-102630.png 898w, https:\/\/blog.retailersagainstsmuggling.ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Screenshot-2026-06-23-102630-300x199.png 300w, https:\/\/blog.retailersagainstsmuggling.ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Screenshot-2026-06-23-102630-768x509.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 898px) 100vw, 898px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><em>According to the Department of Health\u2019s own data, smoking rates have&nbsp;climbed in recent years<\/em><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>This is&nbsp;despite repeated excise rises as Ireland\u2019s illicit tobacco market grows to \u20ac845 million<\/em><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Read the full pre-budget submission <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.retailersagainstsmuggling.ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/RAS-Pre-Budget-Submission-2027-_compressed-1.pdf\">here<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Dublin,&nbsp;22&nbsp;June 2026 \u2013 Retailers Against Smuggling (RAS) has warned the Government that further increases in tobacco excise in Budget 2027 will accelerate the growth of Ireland\u2019s illicit tobacco market, further undermine legitimate retailers, and contribute to significant ongoing losses to the&nbsp;taxpayer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Launching its Pre-Budget Submission 2027&nbsp;today, RAS said Ireland\u2019s tobacco tax policy is increasingly driving consumers towards cheaper illicit and non-Irish duty paid products which are now widely available across the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The retailer group said the continued growth in illicit tobacco sales is having a major impact on local convenience stores,&nbsp;newsagents&nbsp;and forecourts, many of which rely heavily on tobacco sales to remain commercially&nbsp;viable&nbsp;amid rising&nbsp;labour,&nbsp;energy&nbsp;and compliance costs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>RAS pointed to the latest Health in Ireland data from the Department of Health, which shows smoking prevalence increased from 2023 to 2024 despite repeated excise increases in recent years. The&nbsp;organisation&nbsp;said this&nbsp;demonstrates&nbsp;that further tax increases&nbsp;will no longer push people towards quitting, but instead displacing consumers towards untaxed and illegal products.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The publication&nbsp;last month&nbsp;of Revenue\u2019s&nbsp;Products&nbsp;Survey&nbsp;found that 38% of cigarettes in circulation had no Irish excise duty paid, either because they were illegal or&nbsp;purchased&nbsp;outside Ireland. In the Roll-Your-Own tobacco market, the figure rises to 45%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>RAS estimates Ireland\u2019s untaxed&nbsp;tobacco&nbsp;market is now worth between \u20ac790 million and \u20ac845 million annually.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>National Spokesperson Benny Gilsenan said:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>\u201cThe Government is&nbsp;allowing hundreds of millions of&nbsp;euro&nbsp;to disappear into the black market every year because tobacco taxes here have gone completely over the top.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>You now have people buying packs of 20 cigarettes for a fraction of the price through illegal sellers, social media and products being brought in from&nbsp;Spain and the Canaries. Meanwhile,&nbsp;the local shop&nbsp;owner,&nbsp;like&nbsp;myself,&nbsp;trying to do things properly,&nbsp;is being hammered.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>The worrying thing is smoking rates have&nbsp;actually gone&nbsp;up despite all these tax increases.&nbsp;So,&nbsp;the policy clearly&nbsp;isn\u2019t&nbsp;working. Criminal gangs are making money, the&nbsp;taxpayer&nbsp;is losing&nbsp;out, and legitimate retailers are the ones taking the hit.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dublin-based retailer Phillip Craddock said:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>\u201cFor small retailers, tobacco sales are still a huge part of keeping the doors open. A lot of local shops, newsagents and forecourts depend on that trade to survive.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>When customers start buying cheaper illegal cigarettes, retailers&nbsp;don\u2019t&nbsp;just lose the sale on a pack of 20 &#8211; they lose all the extra business that comes with it too.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>The black market is growing in plain&nbsp;sight&nbsp;and retailers across the country are paying the price. The Government needs to stop pushing prices higher and start focusing properly on enforcement.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In its Pre-Budget Submission 2027, Retailers Against Smuggling has called on the Government to:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Freeze excise tax on all tobacco and vaping products in Budget 2027<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Provide&nbsp;additional&nbsp;x-ray scanners and frontier staff at Irish ports to increase freight screening rates and target&nbsp;organised&nbsp;smuggling networks<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dublin,&nbsp;22&nbsp;June 2026 \u2013 Retailers Against Smuggling (RAS) has warned the Government that further increases in tobacco excise in Budget 2027 will accelerate the growth of Ireland\u2019s illicit tobacco market, further undermine legitimate retailers, and contribute to significant ongoing losses to the&nbsp;taxpayer. Launching its Pre-Budget Submission 2027&nbsp;today, RAS said Ireland\u2019s tobacco tax policy is increasingly driving [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.retailersagainstsmuggling.ie\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693","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\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.retailersagainstsmuggling.ie\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=693"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.retailersagainstsmuggling.ie\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":698,"href":"https:\/\/blog.retailersagainstsmuggling.ie\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693\/revisions\/698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.retailersagainstsmuggling.ie\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.retailersagainstsmuggling.ie\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.retailersagainstsmuggling.ie\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}