Posted on 11/23/2006 8:57:10 AM PST by MadIvan
European judges today rejected a legal bid to allow online shoppers to buy cut-price cigarettes and alcohol anywhere in Europe.
The decision is a blow to consumers hoping for a pre-Christmas bonanza.
But it is good news for Chancellor Gordon Brown, who had been facing a multi-billion-pound-a-year hole in revenue from domestic excise duty if the decision had gone the other way.
The European Court of Justice judges ruled that "only products acquired and transported personally by private individuals are exempt from excise duty in the member state of importation".
This means that Britons who want to take advantage of cheaper alcohol prices on the continent will still have to travel there on so-called booze cruises.
The judges made clear that alcohol and cigarettes being brought home for consumption from other EU countries can only be exempt from domestic excise duties if those goods are intended for the personal use of the private individuals who have transported the goods themselves.
"Products which are not held for private purposes must necessarily be regarded as being held for commercial purposes for the application of the Directive on excise duty," said the ruling.
Furthermore, the products in question must be transported personally by the private individual who purchased them. The judgment went on: "Were this not so, the effect, for the competent authorities of the Member States, would be an increased risk of fraud as the transport of products covered by the exemption requires no documentation."
The case was brought by a group of Dutch wine buffs who regularly sent one of their group to France to buy low-rate French wines on behalf of all of them. They went to court complaining that they paid duty in France and then more duty for importation into their own country.
But the judges said today that even that private arrangement did not qualify to dodge domestic tax: "The Directive requires that those products be intended for the personal use of the private individual who has acquired them and that it therefore excludes products acquired by a private individual for the use of other private individuals."
A Government source commented: "This clear win for the Government is a victory for common sense."
The Treasury already loses an estimated £1 billion a year to the "booze cruisers" who cross the Channel to bring back cheap-rate alcohol and cigarettes from France.
The the losses would have been multiplied if the ruling had opened up the booze-cruise market to on-line shoppers.
Small traders in the UK breathed a sigh of relief too, having feared the loss of their regulars in a wholesale transfer of trade from the corner shop to on-line EU drinks and cigarette suppliers.
Ken Patel, national spokesman for Retailers Against Smuggling, and a Leicester retailer, commented: "If the proposals had gone ahead, the livelihoods of many of our corner shopkeepers would have been seriously threatened. It would have been inevitable that shoppers would have been tempted to buy tobacco from outside the UK because the high levels of tax here make it much cheaper for them to do it that way.
"Tobacco accounts for a huge proportion of the sales of many corner shopkeepers and to have lost these valuable sales plus the add-on purchases a shopper often makes at the same time - like a daily paper or a pint of milk - would have been unsustainable for many retailers."
He said Gordon Brown's high tobacco taxes were partly to blame for shopkeepers worries about losing customers: "The Government must realise that its disproportionately high tobacco tax regime is not working. It is encouraging shoppers to buy tobacco from other sources and is putting corner shopkeepers out of business."
Regards, Ivan
Ping!
These sons of bitches are tyrants that in another day and age would be stripped naked and hanged in a public square.
It's exactly that kind of mentality that really pissed off the Colonies in 1776.
Regards, Ivan
You even pay a television tax, if I recall correctly.
We could send you instructions on how to hold a Boston Tea Party if you're interested.
I guess "judges" are the same all over the world. Nothing but a bunch of highly paid revenue protection police. Just making sure that the "unwashed masses" pay "their fair share" to BIG government. Crooks!
Regards, Ivan
Every country needs a Whiskey Rebellion or three.
Just drink your Victory Gin and listen to the telescreen.
You guys could hold a Boston TV party.
On the whole I think that this is a reasonable court ruling. The real problem is government spending and the taxes required to support that spending.
Garde la Foi, mes amis! Jamais reculez á tyrannie un pouce!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! Never give an inch to tyranny!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)
I like that.
"Not only does the EU come up with crap policies, they won't even allow us to drown our resulting sorrows cheaply."
Hi. The EU doesn't tax alcohol in the UK, that is entirely down to the UK government.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.