As announced earlier this year, the New Zealand government has proceeded to enforce a reduction in the tobacco allowance for inbound travellers.  The new regulations were implemented on 1 November.

 

Inbound travellers will now have to pay GST and duty on tobacco exceeding the allowance of 50 cigarettes, which has been reduced from 200, or 50 grams of cigars or tobacco.

 

The gift concession for tobacco has also been removed, where previously parcels received from overseas containing tobacco were permitted.

 

Arriving passengers will have the opportunity to either pay the additional GST and duty or declare and discard excess tobacco on arrival. Those people who do not comply face being fined and having their tobacco seized, and potentially even face prosecution.

 

‘AVOID PASSENGER DISSATISFACTION’

APTRA President Jaya Singh commented: “We are appealing to all retailers to keep their staff informed of this latest development to avoid passenger dissatisfaction.

 

“This is another blow to the legitimate businesses around the world and we will continue to impress upon governments the importance of maintaining duty free allowances and the negative impact on national economies as a result of lower airport revenues.

 

“While we understand the health driven motivations behind this legislation, duty free sales of tobacco represent an insignificant percentage of overall tobacco sales – less than 1%. Such legislation, we believe, will have no impact on the consumption of tobacco as smokers will simply continue to purchase locally or on their outbound journey.”

 

The approximate duty levels payable on excess quantities of tobacco can be found at this website: http://www.whatsmyduty.org.nz/changes-tobacco-limits

 

TRAVELLING TO INDIA

It was only in September this year that APTRA called on retailers to take heed of the new regulations concerning inbound allowances for tobacco goods when they sell to passengers who are travelling to India.

 

As reported, the APTRA reacted with dismay at the Indian Government’s proposal to halve the duty free tobacco allowance, announced in July.

 

Interestingly Singh (right) told the TRBusiness’ ’Tobacco Power in Duty Free’ event that he was very concerned about the strategy moving forward to try to preserve duty free tobacco allowances.

 

Asked by Doug Newhouse what he thinks is the right route to retain the tobacco business for as long as possible, he said: “We need to arm ourselves with a bucket full of facts. Next to that what I see is a clear understanding of process when it comes to lobbying… who does what… when and how do we get the heads up as to what are the issues that are being discussed at various government levels?

 

PROACTIVE STANCE

“Can we get in early on that process so that we can arm ourselves with those facts and begin to get at the right table with the right facts?”

 

“I would say that my observation of how we’ve addressed this so far… its been like for want of a better word.. we have been reactive. So the question really is what is it going to take for us to move from a reactive mode to a proactive mode. How does process and facts fit into that?

 

“At the end of the day I think that if all we stand a chance of retaining the category – which is to your question – we need to have a fundamental shift in where we are today… primarily reactive, to that proactive stance and what does it take to do that? If we don’t have that I don’t think we have a clear strategy.”