You might well duckOriginally Posted by Zak33
That quote says that only duty paid by smokers on cigarettes entitles them to any hospital treatment.
Idea lets genetically modify our children to be impervious to disease, those that don't agree don't get medical treatment
Spent elsewhere on something that has 40% duty? You joke right? BTW nicho has already stated this.
Unless you're arguing that tobacco duties are paid on non-tobacco items, yes, I'm sure.
Unless you can actually produce some hard figures, this is just waffle, I'm afraid - some of the money might find its way into the government's tax revenues, but then again it might not, and even then it would be a vastly smaller amount.
Click on the link to "smoking kills". Click on the "next" button. Click on "The cost" under s1 of the contents page. And no, you DON'T have to pay £11 to do that, that's just a lie. And yes, it does mention the cost. Along with a reference to the independent study that arrived at the figure. Another lie.
Why? An indeterminate amount of money is lost due to smuggling. However, even after that loss the government is raking in more than £8bn in additional revenue off smokers, more than 4 times the amount that smoking costs the NHS. So how is smuggling relevant to the discussion? Unless you're merely attempting to smear smokers by characterising all smokers as duty dodgers.
Duties on cigarettes have nothing to do with a trade deficit; avoidance of them reduces government revenues, as noted (although the government still gets £8bn). Cigarettes (or tobacco) are imported anyway, and any trade deficit is created by purchasing imported goods, not by avoiding duties on those goods.
Last edited by nichomach; 10-11-2004 at 12:00 PM.
Uhhhhh, the money gets back to the government through other taxes both directly and indirectly. Just because it doesnt get there in one go doesnt mean they dont get it. The money doesnt just disappear it goes else where and comes in another way... think about it a little. Money moving around within a country creates a stronger economy. Money going out messes it up thats why smuggling is bad. As the money goes to france etc making the pound weaker and also putting the country in debt. do you see!
No we see, you don't, sorry to be that blunt but you seem a little confused.
Let me break it down for you, smokers spend £20 billion on cigarettes 8bn of that goes directly to the government (40% duty), 12bn goes to the cigarette companies and the retailers.
If you stop every person buying cigarettess that £20bn doesn't disappear but its likely to be spent on something else without as much duty.
If that smokers money for example is spent on chocolate then the government loses £8bn as there is no duty on chocolate.
(btw I deliberately took VAT out of the equation to simplify the maths, you pay VAT on both cigarettes and chocolate)
You're telling us to "think about it a little"?
1. Tax revenues off other products and services proportionately are vastly lower than tobacco duties, which run at more than 40%. Given that VAT at 17.5% is also chargeable on tobacco products, the proportion of the price of a pack of cigarettes that goes to the government is about 58%. Assuming that ALL of that tobacco money was spent on other products and services that attracted VAT even (and not all do) that percentage would fall from 58% to 17.5%. Now direct taxation has already been paid by the smoker before he starts thinking about buying his pack of smokes (direct taxation is income tax and NI), so that isn't relevant, since the smoker would pay the same regardless of whether he smoked or not. Indirect tax is the only tax form relevant here and that's what would be adversely affected.
2. Seen many tobacco planatations around the UK? Regardless of whether the duty is paid or not, the purchase price of the cigarettes, ex duties and VAT, exits the country anyway. Duty avoidance is bad, but it STILL doesn't affect balance of trade, it just affects treasury revenues. And it STILL isn't relevant since even after any losses due to smuggling the Treasury is STILL getting £8bn p.a. from tobacco products.
heres a link for you
http://www.hda-online.org.uk/html/im...financial.html
*
More than 70% of two parent households on income support buy cigarettes and around 55% of lone mothers on income support smoke, consuming an average of five packets a week. Smoking means that the poorest households go short of food, heating, clothing and other essentials.
*
pushes up the costs of benefits.
The UK government earned more than £9.6 billion in revenue from tobacco duty and VAT in 2000. However, an estimated one in three cigarettes smoked in the UK is smuggled, which lost the government £3.8 billion worth of revenue in the same year.
Thats a £4 billion of money that the gov doesnt get which means that even more money has gone out of the country.
another link
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/ba...king/86599.stm
This shows that the paper is basically out of date, may 1998 the bbc reported on that and the data is probably from 2 or 3 years earlier. It doesnt say whether £1.7 billion is the total cost or the cost to the nhs....
another link
http://www.ash.org.uk/html/factsheets/html/fact16.html
It says the paper only calculates direct costs to the nhs from smoking patients.
You spend £5 on cigs of which most goes to the government direct fair enough im not saying you are wrong on that. However if you spend that £5 on other things it gets back to the gov other way poss VAT but also corperation tax and other company taxes. Income tax from people who work for the compaines which made the money things like that....
£8 billion may sound a lot but when spending the money on other things the difference in the amount the government gets is smaller. The effect of less smokers will not have that big an effect and things will balance out.
3 times now you have talked about the effects of smuggling, it doesn't matter, this discusion is about smokers receiving NHS treatment, we are argueing that money paid to the government is paying for their treatment.
Yes cigarettes are smuggled and yes it effects the economy, but it doesn't affect our arguement so why keep stating it?
You slate the figures again, but still the only figure you provide is the £4bn a year that has no relevance to your arguement.
Whether its total cost or not is debatable, but the smokers arguement has £6.3bn to play around with so you are fighting a loosing battle there.
I see your point but all those things you stateall apply to the retailers of cigarettes anyway, so the only difference will be the 40% duty.corporation tax and other company taxes. Income tax from people who work for the compaines which made the money things like that....
Yes, smoking is bad, and it consumes too much of the income of poorer households; you won't find me saying any different. It does NOT push up the cost of benefits, since benefits do not have a "smoking allowance" built into them. It DOES detract from the amount available to be spent on food, clothing, heating etc. It's a BAD THING. Now that we've established that...
Again, how is that relevant (BTW thanks for providing a link which indicates that smokers contribute £1.6bn MORE than I'd claimed per annum)? Smokers are still contributing vastly more to the tax pool than they receive in the way of NHS care for any smoking related illnesses.
And? It still doesn't affect the (now £9.6bn and rising) amount of money that smokers DO contribute to the treasury. Duty avoidance is BAD. This, we acknowledge. Fine, police it harder. Arrest those who do it. Lock them up. Works for me. It still isn't anything to do with whether smokers should be denied access to health services.
No, it doesn't demonstrate that the data is out of date, unless you can demonstrate that the figures have changed or that the relative amounts of revenue from tobacco and NHS cost have changed.
Well, the initial estimate for that cost was £1.5bn, and the estimate for the total cost to the NHS in the white paper was jacked up to £1.7bn. So where's your argument? And given that it's suggested by that page that we apply an estimate of £80bn, which is some £8bn more than the NHS is responsible for in public funds (NHS Annual Report ), I'll take their reckoning with some salt.
Last edited by nichomach; 10-11-2004 at 12:36 PM.
But thats my point there isnt £6 billion or whatever to play with... £4 billion is being removed by smokers from smuggled ones thats money the country has lost. Money lost because of days off work many things like that reduce the cost effectiveness of it all too.
THEREFORE the money generated from smokers, is not paying for the treatment as much as you like to think.
you cant sling around the statement that smokers pay for their treatment because it not that simple.
My point about the money being spread around is that it has knock on effect which benefit everyone and it not money which is definately being lost
OK, Kumagoro, read this carefully; even after any depradations caused by smuggling or whatever, the actual money received by the government from paid tobacco duty and paid VAT is over £8bn. Got that? That is what the government gets at the moment. If all smuggling was stamped out, they'd get £3.8bn (maybe; that's an estimate remember) more, to make a total of £11.8bn. No-one would be happier than I were that to occur. However, the money that they actually get is over £8bn. Got that?
And were that money not spent on tobacco, whatever else it was spent on would massively reduce the net revenues to the treasury, and it's those revenues which contribute to the tax pool and thus pay for public services including the NHS.
Last edited by nichomach; 10-11-2004 at 12:48 PM.
I was gonna write a whole bunch on this but I thinkis enough
The social benfit thing is an issue because they complain they dont have the money to live and pressure the government into giving the more money and free housing.
If money goes out of the country the country is in debt meaning that the government has to borrow money to balance the books which means less public spending and paying interest on that borrowing.
The £80 billion was the cost over the past few years i think not a calculation of the total amount in a year.
Admit it you went to robert maxwell school of finance didn't you. Sorry to cause offense kumagoro but in your last couple of posts most people (even on the side of the non smokers) would agree that you are displaying a distinct lack of financial knowledge and its destroying your arguements.If money goes out of the country the country is in debt meaning that the government has to borrow money to balance the books which means less public spending and paying interest on that borrowing.
It doesn't put the government in debt if we spend money elsewhere.
Kumagoro, If you seriously imagine that this or any government listens to and adjusts benefit payments to people on income support on their say so, then you have absolutely NO idea how benefit levels are set.
OK, Kumagoro, you really don't understand the difference between the PSBR and the balance of trade, do you? The government does not borrow money to cover the balance of trade deficit (if we are in deficit rather than surplus) , since that is a purely notional reckoning of how much we import compared to how much we export, not an actual debt that has to be covered, OK?
And the £80bn figure is given as part of a paragraph estimating annual costs, in 1997 prices. Using their reckoning, that's actually not an unusual figure to arrive at, since what they are doing is calculating the loss of the economic value of a person who dies in the course of a year over the whole of their life. It goes like this "You would earn £30k per year for the next 40 years. You've just pegged out. Therefore, your family has lost £30kx40=£1,200,000". However it isn't a good measure of how much it costs to treat someone.
Last edited by nichomach; 10-11-2004 at 01:03 PM.
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