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<p>In 2006, Parliament introduced stringent rules requiring all UK tobacco manufacturers
to control their supply chains. These rules required them to take steps to avoid supplying
cigarettes and hand rolling tobacco to persons who are likely to smuggle them into
the UK or resupply them to other persons who are likely to do the same.</p><p> </p><p>Tobacco
manufacturers can face penalties of up to £5m for failing to comply with the rules.</p><p>
</p><p>HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) robustly challenge tobacco manufacturers’ supply
chain policies and procedures to ensure their continued compliance with the rules.
This has involved ongoing contact and regular meetings between HMRC’s Large Business
Team and manufacturers since the legislation was introduced.</p><p> </p><p>One aspect
of this ongoing contact is the requirement that manufacturers inspect seizures of
over 100,000 cigarettes or 50kg of hand rolling tobacco and provide a summary of how
those goods, if confirmed genuine, got in to the hands of smugglers. Large Business
review and challenge these summaries to ensure manufacturers have taken appropriate
action, in line with their own published supply chain policies.</p><p> </p><p>Due
to taxpayer confidentiality it is not possible to provide comment on the progress
of HMRC’s discussions with individual businesses about their supply chain controls.</p>
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