LONDON: A whopping €2.1bn (£1.84bn) in extra tax would have gone into UK coffers if the billions of illicit and counterfeit cigarettes consumed in the UK were sold legally, a report has found.
Some 5.5bn illicit cigarettes were smoked in the UK in 2016, one of the highest levels in Europe, according to a new KPMG study. This is in spite of a 17pc drop in the amount of counterfeit cigarettes in circulation thanks to improved law enforcement. Poland, Belarus, Pakistan and Romania are among the biggest exporters of illicit cigarettes to the UK.
