As per Guido:
"The illegal tobacco trade is rife in Britain. This week a Romford shop was shuttered for after officers uncovered an £8,000 stash, traders in Grimsby were found with £12,500 worth of illicit stock and three stores in the North East selling illicit tobacco and illegal vapes have been closed down by Sunderland City Council. Nationally, Operation CeCe has stripped 33 million illegal cigarettes and 800kg of hand-rolling tobacco from shelves in the last year, with a street value of nearly £24 million…
Yet HMRC claims the black market is shrinking. Its latest estimates put the tobacco tax gap at just 14.2% in 2024/25, supposedly the latest step in a two-decade decline. HMRC’s own methodology admits the 2024/25 figures aren’t measured at all – they’re projections, produced because of incomplete data and resource constraints. The way HMRC defines the ‘tax gap’ is essentially an educated guess. It’s about as scientific as asking someone how many pints they have in a week…
There’s one easy way to work it out. Cancer Research UK estimates smokers got through 28 billion cigarettes in 2024, while HMRC records show only 14 billion cigarettes were cleared for legal sale in the same period. That means around 14 billion missing cigarettes and billions of pounds in Exchequer revenue going straight into the pockets of organised crime. A recent UCL study found 23.1% of smokers in 2025 had bought illicit cigarettes in the last six months, up from 12.2% in 2023. Test purchasing found 54% of independent retailers visited in Makerfield are selling illegal tobacco. If more than half the corner shops in Burnham’s own backyard are flogging illicit fags, HMRC’s estimate is up in smoke…"
This is what happens when governments overtax a product or service, people will use the black market!
HMRC Is Shite (www.hmrcisshite.com), also available via the domain www.hmrconline.com, is brought to you by www.kenfrost.com "The Living Brand"
It's almost like HMRC tells lies. Perish the thought 🤣🤣🤣🤣
ReplyDeleteCost of living crisis, people can't afford the shop price, which is ripe for the criminals to exploit.
ReplyDeleteTax, tax and more tax
We think HMRC should sack 95% of their Communication, HR, and Diversity, Equality & Inclusion teams.
ReplyDeleteNeither the public nor HMRC staff who do the real work will notice any difference.
Reallocate those substantial savings into properly funded and resourced teams to tackle the scourge of corruption and criminality in HMRC and society.
Restoring our HMRC civil servants to a sense of integrity is an integral first step to getting our country back on track.
So the root cause of the nation's problems is a lack of integrity within HMRC.
DeleteThanks for explaining that.
Strange creature.
DeleteYou don't think it's that important to have honest, law abiding employees working in an organisation that grabs more than a quarter of every working person's income? Okay 🤡
Okay, I'll play your silly game.
DeletePutting aside the fact that almost all HMRC staff are honest and law-abiding the concept of an "integral first step" is of an essential beginning or baseline action required to start solving a problem successfully.
So according to Exposed As Corrupt we can't address the problems of national debt, immigration, AI, defence, social care, the NHS, etc,.etc, bloody etc, until HMRC has been 'sorted out' to his satisfaction.
The attitude of a crazed obsessive, but you probably agree with him 🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡