stopping smoking and tax?

Question

Im curious,i smoke but the goverment are really trying to stop people smoking,if the majority of people in uk that do smoke stopped,how much would it effect everything else financially?would tax go up on other stuff or wouldnt it matter because less people will be using the health service?

I think the amount of smokers will decrease dramactically in the next few years,so less money will be made on the taxs,but people will still be getting these illnesses from smoking previously,so i think uk might be in the sh*tter for a while.

lol,i think non smokers annoy smokers just as much as their smoking annoys them.

cheers zara :) if all the p*ssed up smokers are on the street out of the pub there will be more fights on the street surely,again costing the health service/police when they have to come up and sort them out.

Answer 1

the latter. I was disscusing this with a heart surgeon once and he told me that the cost to the NHS to treat smokers far outweighs the income the country makes in Tax on ciggs

Answer 2

Dont you worry, the council will find some way of reaping the lost tax from everyone else. I am sure they will think of yet another tax for everyone and draw in more money than the smokers were giving them in the first place. There is no way they are going to lose out!

Answer 3

I'm curious about this too - I'd be more inclined to give up if they banned cars off the roads - instead of making people stop smoking outside on the grounds of hospitals and inside football grounds - but outside the terraces - that is in the open air talk about madness and the lunatics taking over the asylum!

Answer 4

Yes, if everyone stopped smoking the loss of tax revenue would be a big blow that would have to be found by increasing taxes somewhere else.


The amount of tax raised on cigarettes (billions per day!) far outweighs the cost of treating smoking related illnesses.

Answer 5

Well said, SHAZ H. Two other things to bear in mind: #1. Why is there no pro-smoking lobby? Too politically incorrect at the moment, eh? Now that's not democratic, is it! #2. Once the anti-smoking dictators have had their way with smokers, who's next? Will people not be able to fart in public any more? Oh no, I forgot, even anti-smokers fart, so it'll have to be some other quiet group/subculture.

Answer 6

The more people that smoke, the greater the cost to the NHS for treatment of smoking-related diseases; Emphysema, Lung Cancer, Asthma, Bronchitis, CHD etc (not to mention the NHS Stop Smoking sessions). So whilst a huge amount of revenue is being created through duty tax on cigarettes, I would imagine that most of it (if not all) ends up being ploughed back into the NHS to treat the smoking related diseases. It is just a vicious circle and the only real way of making any progress is to reduce the amount of people smoking; if less people smoke, less money will need to be spent treating the related diseases.

Answer 7

Prevention is better than cure and cheaper too.
Don`t fret about the government being hard up as a result of us stopping smoking. They have already decided how they will replace the smoking tax money.

Answer 8

i live in Scotland, this law came into force last march & has hada really bad inpack here, some pubs have closed down & many people are standing out in the street to have a puff.
i think the goverment will put up taxs,
i dont know when they plan this for england - being a far bigger plase -then who knows.
i dont smoke myself but my b/f does and we go out less now.

Answer 9

I think the problem with smoking and tax is that it costs more to fix and care for people who are suffering from the effects of smoking than the revenue generated by the tax on the tobacco.

Answer 10

I noticed a lot of former tobacco growers are now wine producers... both are still government subsidized.. go figure.
If the government wanted us to stop smoking they'd have someone making a pill that would be safe and fast!