You’re not going to be taxed just yet…
It looks likely that vaping and e-cigarettes will escape being taxed in this year’s budget.
According to pre-budget documents released this week, finance officials are playing the possibility that there will be a tax placed on e-cigarettes.
The Tax Strategy Group is an interdepartmental committee chaired by the Department of Finance and is tasked examine and develop proposals for measures in the areas of taxation, among other functions.
TSG said that trying to place a levy on e-cigarettes would be difficult to implement, according to a statement.
Implementation and collection of such a tax would be difficult given the wide variety of ways in which these products are supplied to the consumer.
They also argued that many experts see e-cigarettes as a path to quitting smoking cigarettes.
If a substantive duty were to be imposed on e-cigarettes there would be significant cross-elasticity effects, given consumers view e-cigarettes as either substitutes or complements for traditional tobacco products, which could in turn undermine the broader public health objective of reducing tobacco consumption.
While there have been very few studies about the long-term health effects of e-cigarettes, one of them earlier this year from University College London said that, “E-cigarettes and NRT are far safer than smoking, and suggests that there is a very low risk associated with their long-term use.”
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