Alcohol tax

[didds]

By "volume" they mean volume of pure alcohol. So the average person would buy less scotch.

Scott.

ah - cheers Scott.

didds

[didds]

What is to stop canny Scots doing shopping runs across the border on a massive scale? Don't such arbitrage opportunities completely undermine attempts to deliberately over-price alcohol, or anything else, when you have a completely porous border?

nothing. Like was a time when if you lived in East Kent esepcially you could take a cut price channel ticket in the late afternoon to calaid, fill uup with booze, fags, washiung liquid, olive oil and whatever else was a bargain in France, then fill up with diesel/petrol, and have a meal out while you were there and the savings compared to the purchases even including the meal was cheaper. (well, according to my dad anyway!).

Ditto AIUI at sometime with the Republic criossing into NI. etc etc etc

didds

[UncleEbenezer]

I worked very briefly at Ispra, on Lago Maggiore in Italy.

Colleagues who lived north of work - near the Swiss border - would cross the border for things that were much cheaper in Switzerland (headed by petrol). Those who lived near work, or in directions other than north, wouldn't bother.

Crossing borders for cheaper shopping is literally an issue at the margin. I expect the "booze cruise" to Calais has been bigged up in the meeja, and in reality it's just a handful of idiots who do/did it other than when they had a real reason to make the crossing.

[Lootman]

I worked very briefly at Ispra, on Lago Maggiore in Italy.

Colleagues who lived north of work - near the Swiss border - would cross the border for things that were much cheaper in Switzerland (headed by petrol). Those who lived near work, or in directions other than north, wouldn't bother.

Crossing borders for cheaper shopping is literally an issue at the margin. I expect the "booze cruise" to Calais has been bigged up in the meeja, and in reality it's just a handful of idiots who do/did it other than when they had a real reason to make the crossing.

What is fascinating about these types of things is how it attracts businesses to border regions.

Drive along I-15 from Las Vegas, NV to St. George, UT and at the border there is a quiet town called Mesquite which, upon closer inspection, has several huge booze supermarkets out of all proportion to its size. This is for the benefit of Utah residents who can barely buy a drink and certainly not a cheap one.

The border between Alabama and Tennessee is formed in part by the Tennessee river. On the TN side there are any number of booze (and fireworks) stores. Both are hard or impossible to come by in puritan Alabama.

Or look at all the booze supermarkets on the New York State side of Niagara Falls, for all those poor Canadians who are stuck having to buy alcohol in the "government store" only.

But my favourite is the Oregon/Washington border, formed by the mighty Columbia River. No sales tax in Oregon and no income tax in Washington. Lots of housing north of the river, and lots of malls south of the river!

[stevensfo]

I worked very briefly at Ispra, on Lago Maggiore in Italy.

Colleagues who lived north of work - near the Swiss border - would cross the border for things that were much cheaper in Switzerland (headed by petrol). Those who lived near work, or in directions other than north, wouldn't bother.

Crossing borders for cheaper shopping is literally an issue at the margin. I expect the "booze cruise" to Calais has been bigged up in the meeja, and in reality it's just a handful of idiots who do/did it other than when they had a real reason to make the crossing.

Wow! I think we both worked at the same place! I remember opening an account with Migros bank just over the border at Ponte Tresa, before Lugano for the sole purpose of boasting that I had a 'Swiss bank account'. I was never a shopper but I think the reason people went to shopping centres there was just for the huge choice. Italian shopping centres were and still are incredibly conservative (boring) and I think it was agony for Brits and Germans, used to more choice. The department store in Lugano was like Aladdin's cave.

Funny story but I was there in 2001 when Italy was adopting the euro and I asked why the traffic to Switzerland was suddenly so terrible on Saturday mornings, when I liked to visit. They told me that millions of Italians kept huge amounts of cash (Lire) under the mattress etc and it was the only way they could exchange it for another currency. Otherwise, their own bank would start asking difficult questions.

Only someone from Italy will understand the irony of that.


Steve

[88V8]

The basic problem with the OP's excellent idea is that the Treasury hates hypothecation, or rather the faff of its administration.

V8

[didds]

I expect the "booze cruise" to Calais has been bigged up in the meeja, and in reality it's just a handful of idiots who do/did it other than when they had a real reason to make the crossing.

Nope. I grew up in central North kent. Locals used Calais as a once a month shopping trip - you could save money by shopping there if you got the right (cheap!) ferry/tunnel ticket, had an almost empty tank to fill, and smoked and drank. Bonuses were the stuff that was way cheaper (olive oil, washing powder etc). Most friends' homes had french wasghing powder in their utility rooms etc.

And I can testify that the ferries etc were full of white van man with vans loaded to the gunwhales with beer and tobacco for trips as far as Newcastle (they must have been making a profit !). Some of them didnt even get that far ... coming out of Dover Eastern Docks was Jubilee Way (A2) - you'd see vans parked on the side there flogging/moving the contraband onto other white van men before turning around and going back to Calais.

Then there was the report of Kent police pulling over a coach on the M2/M20 etc which on inspection had its luggage holds rammed with beer. The aisle of the coach was stacked floor to ceiling with cases of beer. Each passenger - the coach was full - had cases of beer on their laps.


CF https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews ... glers.html
(as the page starts to load press ESC to avoid the paywall)

After that it was quite usual to see coaches headed for, or returning from Calais, towing a very large industrial trailer...

Some of these may be extremes - but the booze cruise did exist and was a thing.

https://www.kentonline.co.uk/dover/news ... ce-227264/

didds

[Nimrod103]

I expect the "booze cruise" to Calais has been bigged up in the meeja, and in reality it's just a handful of idiots who do/did it other than when they had a real reason to make the crossing.

Nope. I grew up in central North kent. Locals used Calais as a once a month shopping trip - you could save money by shopping there if you got the right (cheap!) ferry/tunnel ticket, had an almost empty tank to fill, and smoked and drank. Bonuses were the stuff that was way cheaper (olive oil, washing powder etc). Most friends' homes had french wasghing powder in their utility rooms etc.

And I can testify that the ferries etc were full of white van man with vans loaded to the gunwhales with beer and tobacco for trips as far as Newcastle (they must have been making a profit !). Some of them didnt even get that far ... coming out of Dover Eastern Docks was Jubilee Way (A2) - you'd see vans parked on the side there flogging/moving the contraband onto other white van men before turning around and going back to Calais.

Then there was the report of Kent police pulling over a coach on the M2/M20 etc which on inspection had its luggage holds rammed with beer. The aisle of the coach was stacked floor to ceiling with cases of beer. Each passenger - the coach was full - had cases of beer on their laps.


CF https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews ... glers.html
(as the page starts to load press ESC to avoid the paywall)

After that it was quite usual to see coaches headed for, or returning from Calais, towing a very large industrial trailer...

Some of these may be extremes - but the booze cruise did exist and was a thing.

https://www.kentonline.co.uk/dover/news ... ce-227264/

didds

These things were only possible because of the single market. Go back before that, and the duty free limit for entering from Europe was much the same as anyone now entering from outside the EU. One litre of spirits and/or a certain limited amount (I can't remember how much) of beer/wine.
Re-introduction of those limits will protect British pubs and British brewers/distillers, and probably protect a lot of livers as well.

[didds]

These things were only possible because of the single market. Go back before that, and the duty free limit for entering from Europe was much the same as anyone now entering from outside the EU. One litre of spirits and/or a certain limited amount (I can't remember how much) of beer/wine.
Re-introduction of those limits will protect British pubs and British brewers/distillers, and probably protect a lot of livers as well.

yup. and yes indeed... i recall talking to a Kent brewer in the mid 1990s who made the point that the booze cruise trade had killed off independent tobacconists in much of Kent, off licences were almost dead, and pubs were starting the loss of trade we are only too aware of these days (albeit for a myriad of reasons more laterally).

But that is really just more grist to the mill that the booze cruise was a very definite thing at one time.

So the loss of the EU based availability can only in fact protexct probably as you describe. Whether it helps livers will remain to be seen maybe

didds