The parallel tobacco market accounts for at least 14% of total consumption

Figures published on Wednesday point to the shortcomings of the fight against smoking in France, which is based in particular on high prices in order to limit demand. The parallel tobacco market causes the tax authorities to lose 2.5 to 3 billion euros per year, says a parliamentary report which estimates the volumes brewed illegally in France from the jump in sales of tobacconists during confinement.

Created in January 2021, the “information mission on tobacco consumption and the return on its taxation during confinement”, makes 11 proposals to “limit the circumvention practices” that fuel this traffic.

The containment laboratory

It is based on the “life-size laboratory that the confinement constituted, to objectively measure the extent of the parallel tobacco market and its tax consequences”, summarize the co-rapporteurs, MEPs Éric Woerth (LR), President of the Commission finance, and Zivka Park (LaREM). “The confinement from March 16, 2020 to May 11, 2020, and the closure of borders, from March 16 to June 14, 2020, have reconfigured the tobacco supply channels” they believe, because “the parallel market has practically died out »Over a period when cross-border purchases – motivated by lower taxes – or on the sly, outside the legal circuit, were impossible.

On the other hand, “tobacconists have been able to continue their activity and capture all of the demand for tobacco”, which leads the rapporteurs to estimate that “the parallel tobacco market is between 14 and 17% of total tobacco consumption. , all products combined ”and even“ 27 to 29% for border departments ”, thus affirms the report. This represents “9 to 12%” of the consumption of cigarettes and “29 to 32%” of that of hand-rolled tobacco, and results in revenue losses “of between 2.5 and 3 billion euros” for the fisc, “2 and 2.4 billion euros” for Social Security and 500 to 600 million euros of unrecovered VAT, says the report.

Harmonize taxation in Europe

To “limit the circumvention practices” of smokers, the parliamentarians therefore propose to “negotiate a stronger harmonization” of tobacco taxation at European level and to create “a community platform for the notification of purchases made by nationals of a other European Union country exceeding the authorized import thresholds ”.

It also recommends in particular to strengthen the means of Customs control, to align the quantities of products that can be imported from Andorra – where the prices are three times lower than those of France – with those planned for other States outside the EU. , and to punish contraband tobacco as harshly as drug trafficking.