ARTICLE · 17 AUGUST 2016

Weekly Tax Update - 8 August 2016

Smith & Williamson

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Weekly Tax Update - 8 August 2016.

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Smith & Williamson

1. General

1.1 Plastic bag 'tax'

DEFRA has published a note of the results and impact of the plastic carrier bag charge of 5p per bag that large shops were required to charge from 5 October 2015. For the first six months, the impact seems to have been to reduce the issue of single-use carrier bags by the largest seven retailers to 1.1 bn, or 1/6 of the figures in 2014. In addition, at least £29.2m of the proceeds was donated to good. The drop in use is greater than the government anticipated, which was 80% for supermarkets and 50% for other high street shops.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/carrier-bag-charge-summary-of-data-in-england-for-2015-to-2016/single-use-plastic-carrier-bags-charge-data-in-england-for-2015-to-2016

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