It's because they are worried about the loss of revenue that a large increase would bring. They don't care about public health cost.
If it was purely a numbers game, surely they'd just make smoking illegal? The total costs due to healthcare, lost productivity, etc., far exceed the revenue collected. Our governments rarely make decisions based on what the numbers indicate would be the best course of action, why do you suspect they are doing so in this case?
Because they cant see the cost. It is not part of the budget.
Those numbers all inform the budget, they might not make headlines on budget day, but they very much are there in the detailed assessments. I think they're more afraid of losing smokers' votes, so like many other countries, they will just keep on gradually increasing them year on year.
But they don't inform the budget.
On budget day, Government announces ban on smoking. From midnight, the Government lose 1 billion a year. Now they need to save money on the expenditure side. Do they cut health by 1 billion despite waiting lists and hospital over-crowding? Do they cut social welfare by some as there will be less people on smoking related disability payments?
Tackling smoking through taxation is not the answer. The smoking ban was successful because for the first time it allowed people to see what it was like to socialise or work in clean air, to come home without your clothes smelling of smoke.
So show me where in the book estimates, they have costed what banning smoking will save.
It is not there because they can't.
There is nothing wrong with increasing the cost of cigarettes every year. I am all for it. But it is not a public health policy. It is not going to stop people smoking or even taking up smoking.
But hitting 20 cigarettes every year by 50c is not dealing with any problem other than adding a few million to the State Coffers.
Raising tax by small amounts is just like raising tax on the price of the pint. Does nothing apart from giving people something to moan about every year over a pint and a fag!!
3. My comments are getting on Sparkrite's goat - Too bad. I can only write what I know and see.
4. Sunny talks some sense.
And therein lies the problem with me and my goat.
You are posting totally unfounded and uncorroborated statements and delivering them as facts, but in reality you are writing what you think you know and see.
Thanks Sparkrite. The "Espana" I see on 100% of the empty cigarette boxes in the smoking areas of busy pubs must be a figment of my imagination. You may be missing my point i.e. this is easy tax paid to the Spanish government by Irish smokers. That tax could with some sensible pricing be paid in Ireland where it is needed more.
Yet none of the smokers I know smoke Spanish cigarettes, weird that we're at opposite sides of the Venn diagram of cigarette sourcing! If a more significant portion of the population were smoking imported cigarettes the Irish sales numbers would have dropped accordingly, this just hasn't happened.
You point makes no sense. Dropping Irish excise levels to even come close to Spanish levels would result in a huge drop in revenue even if 100% of smokers purchased here rather than the 78% as it stands. We'd all be better off if these people stopped smoking. The tiny amount of excise being paid by Irish smokers to Spanish authorities (only ~€10M if 20% of all imports come from Spain) is insignificant in budgetary terms.
Once again, Paddy-the-Corkman comes out best along with the Spain Revenue people.
The first job he found was collecting cigarette boxes. A man in an office would give him 20c per empty box he could bring and he toured pubs and nightclubs looking or them. The man in the office wouldn't tell him what the purpose was. But the guy could only conclude that there was some kind of market study taking place to assess the prevalence of imported cigarettes.
It's crude, but I guess there is no better way of finding out.
I have zero confidence in any stats attempting to measure something like this.
Leo, I'm beginning to have some doubts about you. Where did I say that 100% of all cigarettes smoked here are bought abroad? I don't mind you quoting me, but please don't misquote me.Leper claims 100% of all cigarettes smoked here are bought abroad, almost exclusively in Spain for some reason (even though cigarettes are cheaper in 14 other EU states). I think we can trust his astute assessment and assume the government are lying when they are declare €1B in excise revenue when in reality they are just fiddling the books and stealing all that money the falls down the back of the sofa instead.
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