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Why New Vape Laws & Tax Incentivise Disposables

Why New Vape Laws & Tax Incentivise Disposables

Our new government has today announced the details of their Budget, which lays out how the next few years will look for us financially. It has been a long-awaited and much-anticipated event and will shape the country’s economic landscape.


It comes with lots of changes - £40bn in additional taxes, more money for the NHS, a freeze on fuel prices etc. - but most importantly for us, it comes with updates on how vaping will be affected.


After keeping on top of all news regarding vaping and e-liquids, and we’re unsurprised to hear that they’ve been included in Labour’s first Budget.


We’ve all been expecting to hear that there will be higher tax rates on e-liquids, but the new Budget has taken one step further.


We at DarkStar find ourselves asking why these new measures seem to be incentivising disposable vapes? Not the exact ones we see currently, but it doesn't take a lot of imagination to realise that adding a USB port to re-charge, and a rubber bunged hole to re-fill. gives essentially the same product, at a very marginally higher unit cost. Yes, the product will have the ability to be used multiple times, but in practice, it will likely be used much as it was before...


Let’s look at the facts:


Vaping duty will be introduced at £2.20 per 10ml of e-liquid, regardless of nicotine content.


The 2ml of liquid in modified disposables will be taxed at £0.44. This brings the retail price up from £4-5 to £4.44-5.44. This is in stark contrast to the sky-high tax rate for Short Fills which, at a staggering £26.40 tax rate, will bring Short Fills up to nearly £40 at retail. This will turn smokers away from using DIY e-liquids as a tool in their journey to quitting.


Despite the government having announced that the total ban of disposables will come into effect next year, this new tax guideline seems to reverse any good they were hoping to do.


Modified disposables being available on the market. and taxed at a lower rate per unit of nicotine than DIY alternatives, means they will still be more appealing to children and teenagers due to the simplicity and low cost, along with availability in the same unscrupulous local shops.


We have to ask why these new laws and taxes are being put in place? Why does the government seem set against those who have turned to DIY vaping to help them quit a smoking addiction?


We could support a ban on disposables - we’ve never sold one. But we’re very passionate about the instrumental and crucial role that DIY vaping can play in helping people to quit smoking. This new government policy seems to not have taken that into account.

Next article A Comprehensive Guide to Nicotine Shots

Comments

Paul - November 3, 2024

Hi all,just been looking at the tax they are going to put on 10ml , 50ml and 100 ml bottles of vape juice,oh and not forgetting nice shots,but there’s no mention of bottle shots or one shots,this leaves me with a question mark, sorry if someone else has mentioned this.

Chris Porter - November 3, 2024

This feels like a massive cop out by the government. I get they want to crack down on disposable vapes being sold to minors and I totally agree but the only way to do this is to actually enforce the law on illegal pop up shops selling them to minors. Fine them once at a standard rate of £50k and then second offence shut the shop down. You’ve got to be hard straight away. But instead we all are being colored as the same people and are being shafted for something that we stick to rules set by our own community/knowledge. If it’s to be believes I can’t see the point of me staying a DIY vaper. Vaping as stopped me smoking cus smoking scared the hell outta me when my dad passed away from throat & lung cancer all caused by his smoking habit. It’s safer, regulated by EU/UK procedures and much healthier than smoking, yet we are being targeted and discriminated against. This will no doubt make something we all didn’t want to happen, which is the black market is going to become much bigger and unregulated and in long term will cause alot of deaths cus we won’t be able to afford proper stock gone through the right paths. I feel sorry for you darkstar and many other websites offering all these things for us vapers as the cost hike may put alot of your businesses at risk of bankruptcy

David Andrews - November 1, 2024

Does anyone know what is happening with DIY vapers like myself?
I don’t see how they can tax VG and PG as it is used in all sorts of things.
They cannot prevent you buying it from a none vape supplier with no added tax.
As for Concentrates and Nic shots I don’t know?

cliff clark - November 1, 2024

Hi I’m disgusted by all this ,I have been vaping now for 16 years and would not stop.
So will be placing orders for all the concentrate ,nicotine and base mix to make up enough juice for a couple of years at least.

Gareth Tod - November 1, 2024

So what happens to the price if you buy starter kits? Because your not actually buying eliquid then, your buying the ingredients for it.

DarkStar - October 31, 2024

Mike – thanks for the comment about 44p! Right you are. Even more in favour of disposables. We have edited the article.

mike - October 31, 2024

Your calculations are wrong. A 2ml pod will get an extra 44p in tax, not £4.40. That makes the difference between disposables and diy even worse!

Andrew Macdonald - October 30, 2024

This to me stinks of cigarettes manufactures losing to vaping they are not happy that vaping was cheaper than there death sticks so they lobbied the government to level the playing field as for selling to underage to me this was just the tool to use to bring us to where we are now

Paul Wilson - October 30, 2024

Oh well. It’s been an enjoyable journey away from cigarettes. But, once my stockpile of nicotine concentrates runs out, I suspect I’ll be moving back to hand rolling tobacco. I use about 30ml of fluid per day, but have worked out it will be far cheaper to return to smoking. Total lack of understanding by the government about how different types of e-cigarettes work. I can’t believe that having come all this way towards a smoke free Britain they are putting it all at risk by making a safer alternative more costly. Shame on them.

Nige - October 30, 2024

So in the last 12 months we’ve bought 10 × 1000ml of bottle shots + base mix & nic from DarkStar and it’s cost us roughly £450.00
With this new “sin tax” that will cost us £2,650.00
We no longer smoke, so we’re not harming anyone (including ourselves), so why is a product saving millions of lives worldwide, and endorsed to do so by the NHS, being taxed so prohibitively?
Why isn’t it obvious to our govt. that this is such an incredibly stupid thing to do?

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