Corporate report

Outputs for April 2021 to March 2022

Updated 12 September 2024

The government has had a comprehensive strategy to tackle illicit tobacco since 2000.

This has been highly effective in reducing the illicit market share from 21.7% in 2005 to 2006, to 16% in 2020 to 2021 for both cigarettes and hand-rolling tobacco. In the same period, the revenue lost has reduced from £2.7 billion to £2.5 billion.

HMRC estimates the size of the illicit market using tax gap data, which is reported annually.

For more details, read about excise (including alcohol, tobacco and oils) in Measuring tax gaps 2022 edition: tax gap estimates for 2020 to 2021.

Recognising that this remains a significant problem, to build on this success HMRC and UK Border Force published a refreshed strategy for tackling tobacco smuggling in March 2015. This explains how we will continue to catch and punish those in the illicit tobacco trade.

For more details, read Tackling illicit tobacco: from leaf to light.

This report sets out tobacco strategy outputs delivered for 2021 to 2022.

Cigarette seizures

These are the seizures for April 2021 to March 2022.

	HMRC Overseas	Border Force	HMRC Inland	Totals
Volume (sticks)	187.8 million	1.078 billion	81.6 million	1.35 billion
Revenue value (£)	77.5 million	445 million	33.7 million	556.2 million

Case studies

Read about the removal man jailed for smuggling 2 million cigarettes on mynewsdesk.com.

Hand-rolling tobacco seizures

These are the seizures for April 2021 to March 2022.

	HMRC Overseas	Border Force	HMRC Inland	Totals
Volume (kg)	nil	138,936	74,013	212,949
Revenue value (£)	nil	48.8 million	26 million	74.8 million

Case studies

Read about the illicit tobacco sniffed out in Bury on mynewsdesk.com — 2.4kg of hand rolling tobacco seized.

Criminal investigations

	April 2021 to March 2022
Arrests	104
Positive charging decisions	109
Convictions	73

During the life of a prosecution case a decision is made as to whether to charge a suspect or not.

Convictions do not necessarily relate to the prosecutions started in this period, since outcomes to case will depend on the time taken for them to be processed through the judicial system.

Civil penalties

In addition to criminal prosecutions, HMRC uses a range of sanctions and penalties to improve compliance by:

• penalising anyone handling illicit tobacco products
• recovering unpaid duty on seizures made at the border and inland

Following the UK’s departure from the EU, there have been changes to the way HMRC assess and penalise non-duty paid tobacco importations to the UK from the EU.

This has led to:

• a reduction in the value of tobacco products duty assessments issued by HMRC
• an increase in the amount of Customs & Excise civil evasion penalties raised

The figures for these penalties are included here, under ‘Customs & Excise civil evasion penalties’.

Tobacco products duty assessments

	April 2021 to March 2022
Number of assessments for tobacco products duty issued	473
Value of tobacco products duty assessments issued	£24,354,732

Wrongdoing penalties

	April 2021 to March 2022
Number of excise wrongdoing penalties issued	581
Value of excise wrongdoing penalties issued	£5,882,067

Customs & Excise civil evasion penalties

	April 2021 to March 2022
Number of Customs & Excise civil evasion penalties issued	1676
Value of Customs & Excise civil evasion penalties issued	£5,331,965

HMRC multi-agency events

HMRC maintains a good working relationship with a variety of partner agencies to combat the illicit tobacco trade. These include local authority trading standards teams, the police and other government departments.

Case studies

Read about the final gang member jailed in £2.8 million cigarette fraud on mynewsdesk.com.

Help HMRC tackle tobacco smuggling

To report any kind of excise fraud or tax evasion you can contact HMRC with the information, in confidence.