Snus and UK Customs

[Snusmeister]

I hope nobody minds me cross posting this from a post of mine on another forum.
Just a heads up to any UK members who enjoy snus, I have discovered that duty is not payable on these purchases, please see the quote below. I have read the Tobacco Products Order 2003 and IMO it seems this could apply to dip also as it cannot be chewed. The first quote is directly from HMRC.
Quote:

The scope of UK Excise law
The scope of Tobacco Products Duty is set out in section 1 of the Tobacco Products Duty Act 1979. As oral snuff is not for smoking, the only product type that comes close is chewing tobacco which is included through section 1(1)(e). The meaning of chewing tobacco in relation to the act is further described in The Tobacco Products (Descriptions of Products) Order 2003. Section 8 of the order describes chewing tobacco as a tobacco product which doesn’t come under any of the other descriptions and has been prepared so that it can be chewed. The nature of oral snuff would make it impractical to chew and this is not the intention. Therefore oral snuff is not within the scope of Tobacco Products Duty as currently described in UK law.

The next quote is from a government body describing chewing tobacco products.

Quote:
Chewing tobacco
8. - (1) Subject to paragraph (2) below, references to chewing tobacco in the Act include any product that -

(a) is not cigarettes, cigars, hand-rolling tobacco, or other smoking tobacco,

(b) consists of or includes tobacco, and

(c) has been prepared so that it can be chewed.

So it seems to me that dip falls outside of this description and should fall within the snus description.

[chainsnuser]

Re: Snus and UK Customs

So it seems to me that dip falls outside of this description and should fall within the snus description.

There is no tobacco tax on dip (EU-wide AFAIK), but since it comes from outside of the EU, all other taxes, respectively customs charges have to be paid, unlike snus.

Cheers!

[Snusmeister]

Re: Snus and UK Customs

So it seems to me that dip falls outside of this description and should fall within the snus description.

There is no tobacco tax on dip (EU-wide AFAIK), but since it comes from outside of the EU, all other taxes, respectively customs charges have to be paid, unlike snus.

Cheers!

It's the excise duty portion of customs fees that shouldn't be applicable. If your order gets stopped by customs they will assess the VAT amount applicable to the order. However they shouldn't apply excise duty to the order unlike all other tobacco products because dip falls into the same description as snus and according to HMRC's own manual excise cannot apply. Hope this makes sense.

[chainsnuser]

Re: Snus and UK Customs

Hope this makes sense.

Yes, I can only tell you how it is in Germany (I assume that it can't be much different in the UK since all EU-countries are "synchronised" by the actual EU-directives. Germany is known to always take the freedom to convert the EU-laws into national laws as late(!) as possible. The UK is not much different, which IMHO is a good thing, BTW :wink: We must not discuss about snus and dip, but it's also good in every other regard, at least in my book).

So, in Germany, from

- €0.00 till €22.00 one doesn't have to pay any customs-fees, but one also must be prepared to visit the customs-office sometimes, if only just to receive the package.

-€22.00 till €150.00 one has to pay the national VAT directly in the customs office in order to receive the package. The amount that has to be payed is more or less negligible, but the inconvenience to unavoidably drive to the next customs-office, which may be 50 kilometres away, may be not.

-above €150.00 one has to pay the national VAT and the EU-tax (41.6% added to the net amount of the order). I guess no newbie (and due to that, of course, also no seasoned dipper) will ever order that much, but it's certainly worth to be mentioned, that such a big order might be really expensive

Anyways, one may have bad luck to have to convince the local customs officers, that the exorbitant EU-tobacco-tax doesn't apply for snus or dip.

I'm no expert, I just made some experiences by reading other members' postings here and on other forums and I once had to pick up a snus-order from the customs-office, that by mistake was shipped via Switzerland by paying 19% VAT, which was bearable.

I just want to say that ordering dip inside the EU really is no big deal, but it may get one at least into minor trouble, as described.

Cheers!