Of course, we’re being far too tough on Big Tobacco, as so many contemptuous refer to it, after the failure of its high court challenge to the plain packaging legislation. If we just open our minds to the fact that British American Tobacco and others are saying, we can see how amazing they are public spirited.
They are worried not for themselves but about ”serious unintended consequences” unintended consequences they fear plain package will bring. According to their spokesman, Scott McIntyre, his only advantage would be” organized criminal groups that sell illegal tobacco on our streets.” Illegal black market will continue to grow, when all packets look the same, and it’s easier to copy,” he said.
In case you have not heard, the country is faced with the rampant problem of illegal tobacco, a” crime of smuggling now three times as many counterfeit and contraband cigarettes” in Australia last year, compared with a year earlier. In general, the illegal tobacco market is equal to 13.4% of the legal services market. As the industry know? He commissioned the report Deloitte, Financial Services. The industry was concerned about the illicit tobacco scary market within a few years. Why? Not for myself, of course, but for what it costs the taxpayer in lost tobacco excise taxes.
You often see me criticize the industry trying to get taxpayer subsidies, but the tobacco people are all different. Last year, they ran ads desperately tried to dissuade the government from continuing with the simple concept of packaging and thus oblige industry to cost taxpayers millions in legal fees in response to a high court challenge Big Tobacco – not to mention the billions the government stood to lose in compensation should the court agrees that the government has assigned the intellectual property in the industry.
Fortunately, the court did not agree. He was also awarded costs on the industry, which I’m sure will come as a great relief to the patriotic people of tobacco. But the industry’s concern for the taxpayer does not end there. He railed against the 25 per cent increase in tobacco excise taxes in 2010 due to falling revenue will cause the jump in cigarette prices have more than the legal market in the hands of discounted criminal black market.
You can think of your innocence, plain packaging will reduce the number of young people taking up smoking, but that’s where you’d be wrong. As the industry is due to the full page ad last year, just a” package can manage the cost of tobacco down. And the decline in prices will make tobacco more accessible to young people.” British American boss developed elsewhere, it was a worry because it would undermine the health of the government’s initiative to curb tobacco use. See what caring people we are dealing with?
I think that plain packaging may undercut the” premium brands of cigarettes.” That would be good, but it would be easy eliminated by increasing the tobacco excise tax. Tobacco companies are not just critics. According to the Australian Association of retail, retail” now facing the costs of simple packaging operations, which will see a significant increase in the time required to complete the transaction, as well as all products are virtually identical.”
”Increases operating time, estimated business to half a billion dollars, equivalent to 15,000 jobs,” we were told. No back-of-envelope was offered in support of this remarkable claim, and in this case I would be inclined to regard it with skepticism. But what about the alleged thriving black market – how concerned should we are about this? Not really. We really only got the word in the industry about how great he is and detailed criticism, Quit Victoria calls into question the reliability of the report prepared by Deloitte.
The calculations are based on a survey of Deloitte with a very small sample, which does not seem to be completely random. He asks smokers about their purchases vintage tobacco, contraband cigarettes and counterfeit cigarettes and adds them to the answers together, even if you expect virtually all fake smokes also need to be contraband. As people know, cigarettes they purchased are illegal? The trouble is that these days a lot of cheap, foreign-made, funny cigarettes are imported legally.
Quit Victoria used an official survey by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare in 2010, which had a very much bigger sample, to estimate the total use of illicit tobacco products is more like 2 per cent to 3 per cent of the overall market.This means loss of income of the taxpayer close to $ 165 million a year, over $ 1 billion. I’m sure that taxpayers everywhere to thank the industry for its concern on our behalf, but I do not think we should lose too much sleep over it.