Plain Packaged Cigarettes: Is it a charter for counterfeiters ?

[caparo]

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.

 

That sounds about right. Avoidance is perfectly legal. Evasion is a criminal act.

[caparo]

I think we'd need to actually see the new packaging design and counterfeit measures before making any conclusions.

 

You 'may' be right, and of course whatever I say or anyone says it's only blind speculation anyway.

 

But I do feel that the market will be flooded with 'dodgy' fags, one way or another. To be honest even now as a smoker, I'm a little .... errrm ... perturbed when I go to a supermarket, and I can't actually see the display of cigarettes, it worries me about buying something 'blind'. So if the plain packaging thing comes in, even when I've bought from a reputable source, I'll still be buying even more blind, cos I won't be able to tell one brand from another. How will I even know if the brand I've asked for is the one I've bought?

 

Perhaps the manufacturers should be forced to include a microchip in the design. It will increase costs but that isn't an issue as it can be passed on to the consumer.

The supermarket will then scan the chip and the little display will tell the mugs who buy them that it is the correct poison for them.

It would make it easier to detect fake fags. If they are found on sale and won't scan the retailer is bang to rights. I think it should be introduced here even if we don't go for the plain packs for a couple of years.

Edited August 16, 2012 by caparo

[Tom Bailey]

Plain Packaged Cigarettes: Is it a charter for counterfeiters ?

 

Does it matter maybe it will get rid of more smokers.

[PeteMorris]

Plain Packaged Cigarettes: Is it a charter for counterfeiters ?

 

Does it matter maybe it will get rid of more smokers.

 

Might have known some pleb would come out with a stupid statement like that instead of rational discussion!

[PeteMorris]

Perhaps the manufacturers should be forced to include a microchip in the design. It will increase costs but that isn't an issue as it can be passed on to the consumer.

The supermarket will then scan the chip and the little display will tell the mugs who buy them that it is the correct poison for them.

It would make it easier to detect fake fags. If they are found on sale and won't scan the retailer is bang to rights. I think it should be introduced here even if we don't go for the plain packs for a couple of years.

 

Of course microchips are impossible to copy!

[Tom Bailey]

Might have known some pleb would come out with a stupid statement like that instead of rational discussion!

 

You missed this one then taken from post 82:rolleyes:

 

The supermarket will then scan the chip and the little display will tell the mugs who buy them that it is the correct poison for them.

[PeteMorris]

You missed this one then taken from post 82:rolleyes:

 

Nope...didn't miss anything!....I stand by my original statement!

[stereolab]

Of course microchips are impossible to copy!

 

But you are in favour of anything that makes it harder to copy them - surely any extra piece of security would be something you would support?

 

Admit it - you just like looking at all the fag packets in the petrol station!

 

Actually - here's a thought - if all the packs look the same, then when you walk in to the petrol station how will you know if they have your favourites in stock? Not only that but it will take the assistant longer to find them, causing queues, making EVERYONE late - you might even end up with the wrong make - imagine dragging on what you thought was a Silk Cut only to find you'd been given some Royals by mistake!

[caparo]

Of course microchips are impossible to copy!

 

They are harder to copy than a Marlboro fag packet which would seem to blow your opening gambit clean out the water.

 

Adding a microchip and plain packaging is clearly the way forward.

[chem1st]

I don't suppose the pricing of them will change to any great degree as far as the cheaper and more expensive ones go. One thing is for certain. The government will continually be 'loading' the duty on them relentlessly.

 

What they (the gov) don't seem to realise, is that punitive duty on cigarettes only achieves an increase in counterfeit and smuggled ciggies. The more expensive they make them, the more criminals will see it as being a worthwhile target for forgeries and smuggling.

 

Baccy is £2/kg.

 

DUTY on tabak is £164.11/kg for Hand rolling Tabac.

 

The DUTY is over 80 times greater than the price the product can be bough for. 8200%+ greater.

 

Consider a 1lb pack of bacon at £2 (not even a kilo - some 454g), that would cost you some £170+ if it was taxed at same rate of tobacco! (Typically the cheapest hand rolling tobacco in supermarkets is some £240 per kg).

£240 for 1lb of bacon if it was taxed as much as baccy!