Does the tax raised on cigarettes cover the cost of smoking related illness in the UK?

Are there any links to figures either way?

Ta.

I dunno but they’re £8 a packet in the vending machine at my local!

It more than covers the cost. Smokers tend to die quickly costing the NHS less than us non-smokers who tend to have expensive, messy and extended end games. Smokers are bloody heroes, bravely sacrificing themselves so I can pay less income tax.

I saw a few last night outside the local. Rugged-up to the eyeballs just to sit on a snowy bench and have a puff. They must really need that nicotine.

Depends what you classify as costs. Take into account all the smoking related illnesses and passive smoking I doubt tax on idiot sticks covers it.

I’ve been saying for years you should all be thanking us. We pay massive amounts of tax. And while you lot are destined to sit around, a hopeless embarrassing burden to your offspring, gibbering and smelling of wee, (at huge expense to the taxpayer), I’ll have checked out years before (at a brief cost to the NHS) and will be burning in eternal damnation.

Its like Dignitas without the plane to Switzerland

And what do I get in return? Gratitude? Not a bit of it. You won’t even let me indoors. Pah!

😆 @ binners

Thanks for the comments, tbh, did not want to get into a smoking – none smoking debate, but I know what STW can be like 😉

Just wondered if there were figures on how much tax was raised from direct tax on smoking here in the UK.

The cost of treating smoking related illness might be a harder one to work out 😉

Used to be said to be about 7 times over for the UK, though costing the illness/lost work side is hard to do (and likely underestimated). Not sure now (depends a bit on the proportion of fags smuggled into UK).
There was a report sponsored by Philip Morris that “showed” this for Czechoslovakia (?spellen?).

Bit of a falsehood, though – if Binners’ money wasn’t spent on ciggies he’d prob be buying food or clothes for his ragged starving kids, or maybe his Mrs would be able to have her hair done once a year 😉 , which would raise some tax anyway.
That said, proportion of spend on ciggies that goes to the revenue is very high, more so than on almost anything else so they do still gain more than on other consumer spending.

It cost the NHS around £5bn at last report for treating Smoker and related illneses from smoking. Smoking brings in a revenue of around £10bn but that doesn’t all go on the NHS.

Thanks Drac, thats the sort of thing I was looking for, is that info online?

But how much will it cost to keep you lot in incontinence knickers, tartan blankets and Werthers Originals?

I think we need a direct comparison

Smokers live faster!

since no tax goes anywhere in particular, this comment is pretty irrelavant:

Smoking brings in a revenue of around £10bn but that doesn’t all go on the NHS.

We have no hypothecated taxes in the UK.

I suppose as mentioned above the better calculation would be what additional tax does the exchequer receive from binners spending his bairn’s lunch money on fags as opposed to a hair-do for his good lady?

77% of the price of a pack of fags goes to the exchequer in various tax forms. You could assume that the average “tax take” on all enterprise in the UK (including hairdos) is about 40%.

Total tax take from UK cigarettes are £10.5bn for this year which is taken from total expenditure of £10.5bn/77% = £13.6bn.

If that 13.6bn of expenditure had actually been taxed at 40% then tax take would have been £5.45bn.

Incremental taxation from fag smokers is then £5.05bn – enough to cover their cost to society. Binners, you’re off the hook.

You have to look at the total cost of smoking:

NHS care
Lost productivity during smoking breaks
Cost of cleaning up butts
Cost spent putting out fires.
Lost productivity due to the deaths of smokers and passive smoking Lost cost in increased absenteeism

Phew. Cheers Stoner. I think I’ll nip out for a fag to celebrate. Thus indirectly making all you tax-payers that little bit richer by both consuming more (thus paying more) and also shortening my lifespan.

Its a win/win 😀

LHS – I can’t really see how passive smoking can be an issue now that we can’t smoke indoors. Passively smoking in the same field as someone would possibly take quite some time to impact on your lungs.

You can still smoke in prison though. So… the only people it can kill are vile crims. So if they die then thats another cost saving to you, the hard-pressed taxpayer as you no longer have to pay for their playstaions, Plasma tellies, Safari’s and Jeffery Archer books

gives me a great idea that.

Lease smokers to the forces in Afghanistan!

We stand a couple of chaps with fags next to Osama bin Laden, and before you know it; terrorism solved.

Im a genius at this big picture stuff you know.

Bravo Stoner. I think we need you in government applying some of this lateral thinking to solve the countries economic woes. You’ll have us out of this pickle in no time

Can’t see how the tax take wouldn’t cover the costs, especially taking into account smokers die younger.

Tax income £10.5bn (although the fag money would have been spent somewhere, so you probably need to discount the VAT), so £8.8bn.

UK Tobacco Market Summary

Smoking costs the NHS less than £2bn.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/background_briefings/smoking/86599.stm

So quids in – carry on smoking.

Oh, and learn to Google, then you wouldn’t have to ask stupid questions.

Ive also got this great idea involving the Scots, The NHS and banning union membership but it’s a big sell in some constituencies.

For the OP (link to “Drac’s report”)

abstract, unless you subscribe – I don’t

Seems to me that smoking sometimes gets a bad press 😉 in that there may be a tendency to blame (and cost) all illness & death (esp heart/lung) in a smoker on the tabs, despite there being a figure for non-smokers too (though I’d like to assume they’ve covered this in the paper and only costed excess morbidity)

Pah! Ignore the nay-sayers. Some people are just so resistant too change and fail to se the true vision

I’ve also thought about your Afganistan/Osama analogy. If they’re paying tax on their fags then, while ending the scourge of terrorism they are actively contributing to the exchequer.

And if they could kindly fill their rucsacks up with locally produced heroine, sourced directly from the supplier, before returning home – then they could help undercut the price on Britains streets – thus cutting off funding for the taliban and terrorism.

You see – the more you expand your theories, the better they get

Here’s my idea for cutting back on smokers (I’m more of a smoker than a non smoker, shame really a mistake I made in my teens may kill me)

Anyway those under the legal age to buy tobacco can no longer buy tobacco ever. Those over the age, current smokers like myself or binners would have to get a prescription from a nurse, this could possibly be tested that your currently a smoker (I’m sure there is some kind of test, as lung capacity thing may not work)

Cigarettes are then sold from chemists at a set price. This would stop a lot of social smokers and probably types like me who give up for a few days and start again, give up for a few more and start again etc.

So in around 60 years there will no longer be smokers in the UK. Even the most hardened pro smoker has got to admit it is a rough habit and one most people start in their early teens, without the thorough knowledge of the health implications ahead (although even that would be hard to argue for todays teenagers)

b r – that BBC page (which was similar figures to my 7:1 comment initially) predates Drac’s report which added some extra costs that were previously not counted. I’d assume his is more correct

there may be others beyond just “health” though – if you’re a full or part time carer for a family member with chronic lung or heart disease, how do we cost the loss of your productvity, for example ? What about costs of fag-breaks to business etc ?

Smoking costs the NHS less than £2bn.

So the tobacco industry under estimates it then?

Your Surname isn’t Munson is it?

BR, that report is from twelve years ago and only gives the cost to the NHS (also massively underestimates it IMHO). Doesn’t mention how much the other problems cost, e.g. ‘About 50 million working days are lost as a result of smoking-related illnesses’ and things like carers cost.

I reckon its about cost neutral at best.

Surely theres the same argument to be made as with pensions?

More elderly smokers requiring treatment, so those that are currently dying are costing current smokers a fortune!

Dam those scroungeing lung cancer victims!

tails – making cigarettes illegal is a truly terrible idea – just look at the ‘war’ on drugs.

involving the Scots

Is that actual Scots or just those that choose to live up here?

LHS – I can’t really see how passive smoking can be an issue now that we can’t smoke indoors.

Most passive smoking occurs within peoples cars and houses, in fact 40% of passive smokers are children who have irresponsible selfish parents who smoke in the same room as them.

gonefishin – it would certainly cover any Englishmen living in Scotland. So it’s possible the policy could be adjusted to provide immunity tapered relief for ex-pat Scots living in England or Wales.

I think we’d need an English Parliament to pull it off though….

Smokers live faster!

They certainly don’t move up stairs particularly fast, they need to stop every few steps for a break. 😉

tails – making cigarettes illegal is a truly terrible idea – just look at the ‘war’ on drugs.

I’m just weening people off them.

Stoner’s trying really hard and TJ still hasn’t entered the debate.

binners…you’re dirty dirty dirty. And rough too.

so, what we need to do is make fags filled with old car tyres, and truck loads of nicotine, and charge £20 a pack.

addicts will have to buy these ‘super’ fags, cos they won’t get the same kick from cheap/smuggled/contraband/imports, and the extra dunloppy goodness will kill them even quicker.

we raise more taxes, we kill off more smokers very quickly/cheaply, and we get rid of our mountains of old tyres.

i know, i’m a genius.

i know, i’m a genius.

Couldn’t agree more.

I reckon its about cost neutral at best.

Nah, non-smokers get ill too.

😯

Anyone want to summarise that for me?

EDIT: kaesae’s just done one of the biggest edits ever.