Excise Duties and VAT: Tobacco
(asked on 5th December 2022) - View Source
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what estimate he has made of the potential (a) excise duty and (b) VAT lost due to the sale of illegal tobacco products in each financial year since 2018-19.
HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) publishes annual estimates for the excise duty and VAT lost due to the sale of illegal tobacco as part of its Measuring Tax Gaps report. The figures since 2018-19 are below. Figures for 2021-22 are not yet available.
Financial Year | Tax gap – duty and VAT (£ billion (bn)) | Excise Duty Gap (£bn) | VAT gap (£bn) | Percentage tax gap (Excise duty only) | Percentage tax gap (duty and VAT) |
2018-2019 | £2.1 | £1.6 | £0.5 | 15% | 15% |
2019-2020 | £2.3 | £1.8 | £0.5 | 17% | 15% |
2020-2021 | £2.5 | £1.9 | £0.5 | 16% | 17% |
N.B. In cases where Excise duty gap (£bn) and VAT gap (£bn) do not sum to the total tax gap (£bn), this is due to rounding them individually to the nearest £100m.