Plain Packaged Cigarettes: Is it a charter for counterfeiters ?

[PeteMorris]

I dare say that a good proportion of Sheffield Forum members are also rich people. Not all live on T'Cross. There are also a good number of forum members who advocate EVADING TAX through illegal smuggling and buying blackmarket goods cash in hand.

Tax avoidance isn't illegal. It is positively encouraged throuh ISAs etc. It is tax evasion that is illegal, ie through buying blackmarket goods.

 

Here we go...The march of the pedants! You know exactly what I mean but you're being pedantic!

 

You come here to inflame a perfectly rational discussion with the intention of getting the thread pulled...WHY?

[PeteMorris]

I dare say that a good proportion of Sheffield Forum members are also rich people. Not all live on T'Cross. There are also a good number of forum members who advocate EVADING TAX through illegal smuggling and buying blackmarket goods cash in hand.

Tax avoidance isn't illegal. It is positively encouraged throuh ISAs etc. It is tax evasion that is illegal, ie through buying blackmarket goods.

 

Am I lower class citizen because I live On T'cross?

[caparo]

I see on the news today that the tobacco companies in Australia have lost a high court ruling to completely ban any type of logo or name on cigarette packets. The packets may now only be olive green with a rather horrible image of some cancer related ailment graphically depicted on the front.

 

My personal view on this, is that it will merely play into the hands of tobacco counterfeiters (which are already rife, both here and in Australia). They must be jumping with joy!

 

The average person will no longer be able to tell if they are buying genuine fags or something filled with grass clippings and camel dung!

 

PLUS, the government will instantly lose a huge dollop of tax revenue, but will obviously 'claim' the strategy has been a success!

 

It will probably do folk less harm than smoking tobacco, and if folks are stupid enough to buy illicit cigs from someone who sells fakes that's their problem.

 

I'm sure if the plain packaging laws do lead to increased counterfeiting, the Australian government can insist all packs are fitted with a micro chip to make packaging impossible to fake. Obviously this would add considerably to the packaging costs, but as it would increase consumer confidence as well as tax revenues and profits for the tobacco industry it would mean everyone was a winner.

[chem1st]

It will probably do folk less harm than smoking tobacco, and if folks are stupid enough to buy illicit cigs from someone who sells fakes that's their problem.

 

I'm sure if the plain packaging laws do lead to increased counterfeiting, the Australian government can insist all packs are fitted with a micro chip to make packaging impossible to fake. Obviously this would add considerably to the packaging costs, but as it would increase consumer confidence as well as tax revenues and profits for the tobacco industry it would mean everyone was a winner.

 

So anybody with a sandwich bag gets arrested for carrying a potential tobacco transportation device?

[chem1st]

Isn't tax avoidance simply not buying cigarettes and tax evasion buying them from an illegal supplier?

 

I'm sure a taxman could tell us.

 

Tax avoidance would be growing your own.

 

Tax evasion would be importing it from Africa without passing the UK DUTY cost on to your customers.

[taxman]

Isn't tax avoidance simply not buying cigarettes and tax evasion buying them from an illegal supplier?

 

I'm sure a taxman could tell us.

 

No.

 

Tax avoidance is avoiding a tax that is due.

 

By not buying cigarettes, no tax is due, therefore and ergo no tax is being avoided.

 

I didn't buy a jag today. Therefore I didn't pay VAT on the purchase, but that doesn't make it tax avoidance.

[caparo]

No.

 

Tax avoidance is avoiding a tax that is due.

 

By not buying cigarettes, no tax is due, therefore and ergo no tax is being avoided.

 

I didn't buy a jag today. Therefore I didn't pay VAT on the purchase, but that doesn't make it tax avoidance.

 

No tax avoidance is making yourself legally not due to pay tax.

 

Tax evasion is falsifying your affairs to fraudulently not pay tax.

So the instance you quote is totally wrong.

Ask a taxman. He will tell you the rules.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_avoidance

 

Tax avoidance is the legal utilization of the tax regime to one's own advantage, to reduce the amount of tax that is payable by means that are within the law. The term tax mitigation is not however a synonym for tax avoidance. Its original use was by tax advisors as an alternative to the pejorative term tax avoidance. The term has also been used in the tax regulations of some jurisdictions to distinguish tax avoidance foreseen by the legislators from tax avoidance which exploits loopholes in the law. The United States Supreme Court has stated that "The legal right of an individual to decrease the amount of what would otherwise be his taxes or altogether avoid them, by means which the law permits, cannot be doubted."

 

Tax evasion, on the other hand, is the general term for efforts by individuals, corporations, trusts and other entities to evade taxes by illegal means. Both tax avoidance and evasion can be viewed as forms of tax noncompliance, as they describe a range of activities that are unfavorable to a state's tax system.

 

Incidentally if you want to AVOID paying tax on your Jag you get someone in the armed forces to buy it in Cyprus or Germany and sell it to you 6 months later thus AVOIDING VAT. Not evasion perfectly legal avoidance.

Edited August 15, 2012 by caparo

[PeteMorris]

Why has this thread descended into the finer points of tax evasion versus tax avoidance. It's supposed to be about plain packaging on cigarettes, and the likelihood or not, of counterfeiters being more prevalent!

 

Or at least that's what I thought when I started it!

[regatta]

Why has this thread descended into the finer points of tax evasion versus tax avoidance. It's supposed to be about plain packaging on cigarettes, and the likelihood or not, of counterfeiters being more prevalent!

 

Or at least that's what I thought when I started it!

 

the truth is, the goverment just do what they want when it comes to smoking and get away with it, like the smoking ban, there should have been millions out in protest at that time, but no, so don't whinge and go and have a cig.

[alchresearch]

I guess the answer is:

 

Yes if dodgy corner shops can stock them to make a bigger profit (remember the fake wine story from last year)

 

No from big supermarkets who have a reputation to uphold and may possibly buy direct from the manufacturer.