No Smoking Tax

[dinsdale]

If the whole country gave up smoking, how much would other taxes have to raised to accomodate the hole in the exchequer?

[jocasta]

Let's assume there are about 10 million smokers (poss more or less), they smoke 20 fags a day @ roughly �4.50 a pack....about �4.00 goes to the government in duty, that makes about �14.6 billion pounds a year...so then pays for a couple of Iraqi wars, 70 hospitals etc..........

[slimjim]

But, hospitial funding should go down if everyone stopped smoking. Not immediately, admittedly, but a large portion of the NHS's budget is attributable to treating smoking-related ailments.