As covered in my previous article, the UK government are to introduce a vape tax – otherwise known as the “Vaping Products Duty” in 2026.
A public consultation has been launched which will gather views on the tax proposals and their structure.
I urge all UK vapers and those in the vape industry – especially retailers – to take part and help amend this extortionate policy to something more suitable.
As a principle the addition of tax is understandable. But I think the level of taxation is far too heavy and – to put it mildly – it is greedy.
Personally I believe taxing a 10ml or under e-liquid bottle should be maximum 50p and over 10ml should be £1 maximum – regardless of nicotine strength.
What Impact Will A Vape Tax Have?
The illustration below is an example of the cost of a bottle of e-liquid before and after the proposed tax is applied. As you can see it is horrifying.
As you can see a bottle of 20mg nicotine e-liquid which currently retails at £3.99 will increase to £6.99 with the tax applied. That is for 10ml of e-liquid – which is shocking.
A typical 100ml shortfill nicotine free e-liquid bottle currently priced at £9.99 would increase to £19.99 with the £10 (£1 per 10ml) tax applied. This would be double the price!
The rates of tax will be as follows…
- 0 Nicotine / Nicotine Free (also includes Shortfill bottles) e-liquid – will be taxed at £1 per 10ml.
- 0.1-10.9mg Nicotine e-liquid – will be taxed at £2 per 10ml.
- 11mg or higher Nicotine e-liquid – will be taxed at £3 per 10ml.
How To Get Involved
All UK vapers and those in the industry need to get their voices heard. Ask yourself these questions…
- Will this put you off vaping and make you return to smoking?
- Will you buy e-liquids from the Black Market (i.e. no tax applied?)
- If you need high nicotine strengths will you have to cut down to a lower strength thus risking your attempt to stay away from tobacco?
- If you are considering switching from tobacco to vaping – is this increase in price less of an incentive to switch?
- Do you agree with the tax? If so would a more reasonable rate (i.e. £1 per bottle regardless of strength or volume) be acceptable?
- Will this system stop underage vapers?
- Will this be damaging to your business (retailers)?
- How much will it cost you to implement the new tax (retailers), i.e. altering displays, repricing stock, amending POS systems?
You can view the summary document here, it covers the background of the proposals and lists the questions which will be included in the consultation.
To send your response you can download the response form in Word format here. Then you can email the completed form to vapingproductsduty@hmrc.gov.uk with “Vaping Products Duty consultation response” as the subject.
If you want to comment further or discuss topics in more depth, written submissions are also accepted.
Make sure to respond by the 29th May 2024.
