Smoking

[Little John]

Has anyone calculated the fossil energy cost of providing outside accommodation for smokers to include the embodied energy in the facility, the energy cost of building it and then the cost of providing and running those nice calor gas patio heaters to keep our poor suffering druggies warm all evening?

If they are to be bought inside what is the energy cost of running the high power fans that would be needed to extract the air fast enough to keep the room clean for any non smokers who have to go in there. Then there is the lost heating energy in the air that is extracted, the extra embodied energy in the heating equipment needed to keep the room at a habitable temperature and the cleaning costs of any filters in the heat exchange equipment that would be provided to try and reduce the heat energy lost.

All to keep a few druggies happy! Perhaps they should be required to keep their fag holding hand as high in the air as possible at all times except when taking a drag on their cancer sticks. All smoke should be blown out vertically in order to maintain a smoke free atmosphere at ground level.

Steve, you sound to me like you still have a serious addiction to fag smoking!!

I really don't know how many times I need to repeat this, I do not smoke.

Nobody has suggested on here that the cost of heating and lighting a smoking area should be shouldered by anyone other than smokers. Another aunt sally argument. Or, at least, it is so long as you do not impose an equal logic of austerity to everyone else.

Stop taxing smokers and there won't be a problem. No moral dilemma at all since there will be no more moral imperative to to treat smokers equitably on the NHS with everyone else given their burden of tax pays for that extra healthcare 3 times over and no moral need to accommodate their requirements for consuming in the public arena for the same reasons of tax.

Oh wait, that'll mean you'll have to pay more of your fair share of tax won't it instead of having your tax burden subsidised by smokers as it currently the case.

K, you sound to me like you have a serious addiction to having other people coerced into shouldering your tax burden for you!

[clv101]

This debate is getting muddled. The issue of who pays for what is a red herring. As far as I know no taxation is ring-fenced for specific uses. Roads are not paid for by VED or fuel duty, the NHS bill of smokers isn't paid for by tobacco duty.

The government collects taxation in a wide varieties of ways for many different reasons. Some of these reasons are to further policy aims, some are just efficient and politically acceptable. Most, certainly tobacco duty, are a bit of both.

I, of course, would do things differently. I'd abolish VED and raise the lost revenue from increased fuel duty. I'd (gradually over ~10 years) half the revenue raised from income tax and NI, instead raising the same revenue from increased taxation on energy and physical resources. I'd increase council tax on n+1 homes owned.

On tobacco - I don't believe the tobacco industry is a net benefit to society so I have no problem placing a high duty on tobacco. It doesn't employ many people in the UK, it doesn't create value for the UK through R&D, IP etc. The fact that it raises lots of taxation can not be interpreted as value to the economy. High price is a major motivator for folk to quit (I was chatting to two people just last night, one who's quit a few years ago and one who's currently struggling to quit who both cited cost as a major factor). I would do everything I could to prevent young people taking up smoking in the first place. I was pleased the age limit for purchase has been raised from 16 to 18. Untimely I might even make it a prescription only product - like Methadone!

[Little John]

This debate is getting muddled. The issue of who pays for what is a red herring. As far as I know no taxation is ring-fenced for specific uses. Roads are not paid for by VED or fuel duty, the NHS bill of smokers isn't paid for by tobacco duty.

The government collects taxation in a wide varieties of ways for many different reasons. Some of these reasons are to further policy aims, some are just efficient and politically acceptable. Most, certainly tobacco duty, are a bit of both.

I, of course, would do things differently. I'd abolish VED and raise the lost revenue from increased fuel duty. I'd (gradually over ~10 years) half the revenue raised from income tax and NI, instead raising the same revenue from increased taxation on energy and physical resources. I'd increase council tax on n+1 homes owned.

On tobacco - I don't believe the tobacco industry is a net benefit to society so I have no problem placing a high duty on tobacco. It doesn't employ many people in the UK, it doesn't create value for the UK through R&D, IP etc. The fact that it raises lots of taxation can not be interpreted as value to the economy. High price is a major motivator for folk to quit (I was chatting to two people just last night, one who's quit a few years ago and one who's currently struggling to quit who both cited cost as a major factor). I would do everything I could to prevent young people taking up smoking in the first place. I was pleased the age limit for purchase has been raised from 16 to 18. Untimely I might even make it a prescription only product - like Methadone!

I didn't say that the tobacco industry benefits the UK economy. I said that smokers pay a disproportionate and morally indefensible share of the burden of the cost of running the country. It's disproportionate for a very simple reason. The extra running costs are paid for at least twice over by those smoking taxes.

The moral dilemma is solved equally simply by either:

a) stop taxing tobacco altogether and tell smokers they are on their own when it comes to medical care for smoking related diseases

or

b) reduce the tobacco tax until it merely covers the cost of their extra healthcare

The only reason the above two solutions are not implemented already has got nothing to do with helping people to quit smoking or protecting non smokers. It has everything to do with avoiding having to impose a politically suicidal rise in everyone else’s tax burden.

There are 26 million income tax payers in the UK The wilder-eyed estimates of smoking related costs to the economy are 5 billion p.a. (though it is arguably far closer to two). Tax revenue from smoking is just over 12 billion p.a. That leave a surplus tax revenue from smoking (as compared to its cost on public services) of 7 billion p.a. 7 billion divided by 26 million comes to just shy of 270 pound per year per average taxpayer. Given that a proportion of those taxpayers are benefit recipients or very low wage earners, one might expect the extra tax burden on the ground to be significantly more for many taxpayers.

[biffvernon]

The idea that a tax is efficient and politically acceptable is pretty important. The fact that government can get a lot of tax from tobacco is probably a major (and justified in my view) reason for doing it.

[Little John]

The idea that a tax is efficient and politically acceptable is pretty important. The fact that government can get a lot of tax from tobacco is probably a major (and justified in my view) reason for doing it.

They are not getting tax from tobacco, they are getting it from tobacco consumers.

I've repeatedly noticed this in your posts B. As long as it's the liberties of others that is curtailed, you always seem to find a slippery, self-serving, hypocritical way of morally justifying it to yourself.

How very convenient for you and how very predictable.

[Little John]

So, the defenders of the indefensible on this thread have variously argued that the quite literally extortionate smoking tax (ex·tor·tion (k-stôr sh n) n. Immoral use of one's official position or powers to obtain property, funds, or patronage.) is justified by:

Promoting quitting (never quite explained how, given the additive nature of nicotine), suggesting that smokers, after paying their extortionate tax should be publicly disenfranchised and medically disadvantaged (never adequately morally explained why) or protecting non smokers (never quite explained how)

And finally, the naked and ugly truth:

We can tax them, they can't escape the tax because of the addictive nature of nicotine. We therefore won't have to pay as much tax as a consequence ourselves...so F--k em

Yeah....right

[clv101]

Okay, I don't really agree with how you're framing this.

I didn't say that the tobacco industry benefits the UK economy. I said that smokers pay a disproportionate and morally indefensible share of the burden of the cost of running the country. It's disproportionate for a very simple reason. The extra running costs are paid for at least twice over by those smoking taxes.

I don't like the framing of 'disproportional share'. Taxation simply doesn't work like that in the UK. We don't pay a certain amount of taxation in return for certain costs/benefits. You may very well be right that tobacco duty raises a lot more revenue than the costs of tobacco on society - so what? There are many many things like this (fuel duty raises £33bn compared to the Dept for Transport budget of £5.5bn for example) and also many many things that cost with no obvious correlated tax to pay for them. We simply don't tax and spend specifically.

The moral dilemma is solved equally simply by either:

a) stop taxing tobacco altogether and tell smokers they are on their own when it comes to medical care for smoking related diseases

or

b) reduce the tobacco tax until it merely covers the cost of their extra healthcare

This is a false correlation - we don't tax smokers to cover their medical bills!

The only reason the above two solutions are not implemented already has got nothing to do with helping people to quit smoking or protecting non smokers. It has everything to do with avoiding having to impose a politically suicidal rise in everyone else’s tax burden.

Neither of your proposals are going to happen as both would be a daft way to run a tax system. If you reduced all such taxes to only cover specific related costs you'd have a taxation shortfall of a couple hundred billion!
As I said above taxes are what they are to both further policy aims and because they are efficient and politically acceptable.

Yes we could scrap tobacco and alcohol duty tomorrow, and just bump up VAT on everything to 30% (I haven't checked the number but I expect that's roughly equivalent). This would fail on both counts - it wouldn't further policy aims and wouldn't be politically acceptable.

There are 26 million income tax payers in the UK The wilder-eyed estimates of smoking related costs to the economy are 5 billion p.a. (though it is arguably far closer to two). Tax revenue from smoking is just over 12 billion p.a. That leave a surplus tax revenue from smoking (as compared to its cost on public services) of 7 billion p.a. 7 billion divided by 26 million comes to over 250 pound per year per average taxpayer. Given that a proportion of those taxpayers are benefit recipients or very low wage earners, one might expect the extra tax burden on the ground to be significantly more for many taxpayers.

This conflation simply isn't helpful - do the same calculation for fuel duty, for alcohol, for stamp duty, for NI... it's nonsensical.

[AndySir]

You know it's one thing to disagree with an argument that's put to you - it's another to deny you heard it. Or maybe you just didn't understand it?

[Little John]

Okay, I don't really agree with how you're framing this.

I didn't say that the tobacco industry benefits the UK economy. I said that smokers pay a disproportionate and morally indefensible share of the burden of the cost of running the country. It's disproportionate for a very simple reason. The extra running costs are paid for at least twice over by those smoking taxes.

I don't like the framing of 'disproportional share'. Taxation simply doesn't work like that in the UK. We don't pay a certain amount of taxation in return for certain costs/benefits. You may very well be right that tobacco duty raises a lot more revenue than the costs of tobacco on society - so what? There are many many things like this (fuel duty raises £33bn compared to the Dept for Transport budget of £5.5bn for example) and also many many things that cost with no obvious correlated tax to pay for them. We simply don't tax and spend specifically.

The moral dilemma is solved equally simply by either:

a) stop taxing tobacco altogether and tell smokers they are on their own when it comes to medical care for smoking related diseases

or

b) reduce the tobacco tax until it merely covers the cost of their extra healthcare

This is a false correlation - we don't tax smokers to cover their medical bills!

The only reason the above two solutions are not implemented already has got nothing to do with helping people to quit smoking or protecting non smokers. It has everything to do with avoiding having to impose a politically suicidal rise in everyone else’s tax burden.

Neither of your proposals are going to happen as both would be a daft way to run a tax system. If you reduced all such taxes to only cover specific related costs you'd have a taxation shortfall of a couple hundred billion!
As I said above taxes are what they are to both further policy aims and because they are efficient and politically acceptable.

Yes we could scrap tobacco and alcohol duty tomorrow, and just bump up VAT on everything to 30% (I haven't checked the number but I expect that's roughly equivalent). This would fail on both counts - it wouldn't further policy aims and wouldn't be politically acceptable.

There are 26 million income tax payers in the UK The wilder-eyed estimates of smoking related costs to the economy are 5 billion p.a. (though it is arguably far closer to two). Tax revenue from smoking is just over 12 billion p.a. That leave a surplus tax revenue from smoking (as compared to its cost on public services) of 7 billion p.a. 7 billion divided by 26 million comes to over 250 pound per year per average taxpayer. Given that a proportion of those taxpayers are benefit recipients or very low wage earners, one might expect the extra tax burden on the ground to be significantly more for many taxpayers.

This conflation simply isn't helpful - do the same calculation for fuel duty, for alcohol, for stamp duty, for NI... it's nonsensical.

Your argument is completely spurious because the tax applied to virtually all of them does not represent 88% of their cost. The only one that comes anywhere close is for petrol. So, what's the connection then? Oh yeah, they’re both captive markets

[clv101]

Your argument is completely spurious because the tax applied them does not represent 88% of their cost. The only one that comes anywhere near it is for petrol. So, what's the connection then? Oh yeah, they’re both captive markets

Come on, Steve, be reasonable. My argument is not completely spurious because tobacco is 88% where other taxes are lower! The argument is about the principle. Anyway, petrol is 58% tax, cheap spirits (like Tesco Value Vodka) are 90% tax, even more expensive stuff like Smirnoff Red Label is 66% tax.

[JavaScriptDonkey]

Shall we campaign for a special bicycle tyre tax of, say, 10,000% and see what tune we hear then?

[woodburner]

Er, so do you want to discourage the use of bicycles?

[RenewableCandy]

Well I sometimes wonder about "sin" taxes. I mean, if they are high enough then that gives HMG an incentive to keep people sinning (in this case, smoking).

Viewed that way, a massive tax on bicycle tyres might actually improve things! HMG would want LOTS of people on bikes and might (if it had any sense) build infrastructure accordingly...

[biffvernon]

Oh yes - the only way they could raise a lot of revenue from cycle tyre taxes would be to ban motor cars. Brilliant scheme JSD.

[Little John]

Well I sometimes wonder about "sin" taxes. I mean, if they are high enough then that gives HMG an incentive to keep people sinning (in this case, smoking).

Viewed that way, a massive tax on bicycle tyres might actually improve things! HMG would want LOTS of people on bikes and might (if it had any sense) build infrastructure accordingly...

Yes, that's why they have banned snus and are intending to medicalise e-cigs out of existence because neither of these two products fall sunder current tobacco tax laws because they are not consumed via combustion. If they were to try and lay a tobacco tax on them, this would put paid to the dirty little lie that tobacco tax is about harm reduction since these alternative products are far less harmful than cigarettes. On the other hand, they can't just let them be because smokers are turning to them in large number precisely because of their harm reduction as well as the extortionate tax on cigarettes.

No, they would rather ban them and force tobacco consumers to have to keep smoking and die earlier than they might otherwise, all in order that the likes of Biff don't have to pay their fair share of the UK tax burden.

And then smokers are told they are to be massively disenfranchised in the public sphere and that they are de-selected from hospital waiting lists!

Give me a f***ing break!