Don't Tax My Vape!

The Financial Times has reported today that the European Union, which faces significant economic problems, plans to triple vaping tax in the near future. 

This measure, to increased levies- especially on the higher nicotine strengths, potentially doubling their current cost and adding up to 3€ to the retail price, will hit the most addicted smokers turned vapers the hardest - pushing many back to smoking.

In response, vaping.com is launching a campaign to make sure the UK Government doesn’t tax vaping in the same way as cigarettes, and instead, looks to reduce vape VAT to 5% - in line with other nicotine replacement therapies such as gum and patches.

With the British Government also facing an apparent £40 billion black hole in its finances, it’s not hard to imagine that the Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, could be looking to similarly hike taxes on vaping.

But Hunt – the longest-serving health secretary since the foundation of the National Health Service – should know better. Writing about his government’s long-term plan for Britain’s beleaguered doctors and nurses, he wrote that the heart of the plan was;

“the notion that prevention is better than cure, marking a clear shift towards our health service promoting good health not just curing illness while helping to place it on a sustainable footing for the long term."

We want Hunt to be as good as his word and lead Britain on our ‘Smokefree’ by 2030 roadmap. There are still millions of people in the UK who smoke, and treating their smoking-related diseases costs the NHS £2.4 billion per year according to Action on Smoking and Health.

Hunt left tobacco and vaping alone in his Autumn Statement, but we shouldn’t be complacent. Excise taxes - like those levied on tobacco, petrol and alcohol - usually get addressed in the Spring. Will the Treasury be tempted, under cover of the EU’s proposal, to rethink his view on prevention being better than cure?

That’s a mistake we don’t want to see happen.

We may be one vaping company, but we intend to play our part in preserving the affordability of this life-changing technology for every vaper who needs it.

That’s why, we’ve decided to launch our “Don’t Tax My Vape” campaign with three simple requests for the chancellor, and we will shout them as loudly as we can:

1. Don’t tax my vape! We’re not in the EU anymore and we don’t need to follow Brussel's lead. With smoking costing the NHS £2.4 billion per year, it makes no sense to make the technology that helps smokers improve their quality of life more expensive.
2. Help smokers make better choices - nicotine gum has a reduced VAT rate of 5%, so why not vapes? We want to see lower taxes on all product that gives smokers alternatives, and help offset the huge cost of smoking on the NHS.
3. Tell vapers and smokers the truth - there are a wide number of restrictions on the vaping world to be able to clearly tell vapers the increasingly scientifically researched truth, that vaping is 95% less harmful than smoking. We want to see more factual information given to smokers by both companies like us and the Government.

We will be talking to any politician who will listen to get this message across. Sign up now to follow our progress.