Booze Cruise - Legal Issues and UK Customs

Legal Issues and UK Customs

EU Directive 92/12 Article 8 states: "As regards products acquired by private individuals for their own use and transported by them... excise duty shall be charged in the member state in which they are acquired".

In answer to a legal challenge; a European Court of Justice ruling on 23 November 2006 surprisingly overturned their own Advocate-General's advice and reconfirmed that: "only products acquired and transported personally by private individuals are exempt from excise duty in the member state of importation".

This ruling effectively thwarted the hoped-for option of ordering goods (particularly tobacco), via Internet, from low duty states in the European Union and having them posted to a United Kingdom address, causing discussion in the British media about how a supposed 'Free Trade Area' seems to work for the benefit of some but not others.

The current position is: people may personally bring into Britain with them unlimited amounts of alcohol and/or tobacco from another EU member state, provided that they have been legally purchased (with the relevant local rate of duty paid) in the member state of origin, and are for either personal consumption, or as a genuine gift to another. Importing goods for resale at a profit, or even 'not for profit' proxy purchases on behalf of non-travelling third parties is not permitted.

Although fully aware of this, HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC), faced with widespread abuse by smugglers, impose 'guidelines' - limits based on what they are prepared to believe are reasonable amounts for personal consumption (nominally six months' supply). Most travellers are unaffected, but there are instances of infrequent trippers forward-buying large supplies of (for example) their favourite brand of cigarette, and falling foul of the 'limits' intended to deal with professional smugglers.

HMRC have the legal right to stop and search any vehicle. As their main duty is to detect 'smuggled' goods (and other far more sinister imports), they can (and usually do) use their own common sense regarding unconcealed (i.e. openly-carried) goods above their 'limits', if they are happy that the goods are genuinely for personal consumption. Generally, suspicion will only be aroused if the goods start to look less like a 'personal' hoard, and more like a commercial operation. For example: importing more different brands of tobacco products than there are adult travellers in the vehicle arouses particular suspicion, as most smokers tend to remain loyal to one particular brand. However, there have been reported cases of more extreme treatment (especially where people have unnecessarily concealed extra goods in vehicle cavities, spare wheel wells etc.), with family cars and contents being confiscated on the spot and the travelers left stranded at Dover in the dead of night. This has led to legal challenges to the powers of HMRC, citing the heavy-handedness and inconsistency of some actions, and their dubious legality under European law.

A variation on the standard booze cruise was the ill-fated offshore off-licence which operated briefly off Hartlepool in 2004.