Sandra McLellan (Cork East, Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

50. To ask the Minister for Finance the amount of revenue that is lost annually on illegal black market cigarettes since 2011; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [48559/14]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

The Deputy will appreciate that estimating the scale of any illegal activity, and the tax loss to which it gives rise, is necessarily difficult and that estimates of such loss need to be viewed with caution. I am advised by the Revenue Commissioners that the extent of the illegal trade in cigarettes is estimated through annual surveys of smokers that are carried out for them and for the National Tobacco Control Office of the Health Services Executive by Ipsos MRBI. The results of those surveys for 2011, 2012 and 2013 suggest that the losses to the exchequer in excise duty and VAT attributable to the illegal trade in cigarettes were €258 million, €240 million and €212 million respectively, assuming that the illegal cigarettes consumed displaced the equivalent full tax paid quantities of cigarettes.

A further survey in respect of 2014 is underway and it is expected that the results will be available towards the end of the first quarter of 2015.