Irish hard border question

Green_Bear

Takedap wrote: »

If you are caught doing this in some NI pubs, you'd better hope that it's the Police or the Customs that have caught you.


If not, you might have an appointment with a drill & a bottle of bleach.

True. Not the kind of people who believe in ''healthy competition'', when it comes to their own form of fundraising.

Green_Bear

The obvious solution is for the UK to just match its standards, VAT and duties to be identical to the RoI.
This would make smuggling pointless.


There's no significant financial benefit to the UK in having different fuel duty rates, for example.
Ireland has a pretty similar standard of living to the UK (otherwise they'd all move here).

Any minor loss of tax revenue could easily be made up through other taxes (eg SDLT, income tax, IHT) that have no implications for the border.

Thrugelmir

Green_Bear wrote: »

Ireland has a pretty similar standard of living to the UK (otherwise they'd all move here).

Doesn't sound as if you leave London very often. A very different enviroment.

Herzlos

Green_Bear wrote: »

The obvious solution is for the UK to just match its standards, VAT and duties to be identical to the RoI.
This would make smuggling pointless.

... that's the backstop (and you're completely correct)!

Green_Bear

Thrugelmir wrote: »

Doesn't sound as if you leave London very often. A very different enviroment.

I haven't been to London for years!

I have visited the Republic a few times. It didn't seem much different to the UK.
What differences have you noted?

Mistral001

My point about the border is that at present goods are exported and imported across that border today. VAT is handled in a similar way as VAT is handled between say England and France. So is Corporation tax, income tax, currency etc.

There are at present common areas between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland with regard to the agri-food sector and it is this sector that is going to be hit most by Brexit. The farmers and food processors either side of the border are rightly concerned about Brexit. However amongst this widely reported expression of concern by the agri-food sector, it is often forgotten, or widely unknown that the border affects life in many aspects of business and private life at present.

Herzlos

It's going to be hellish for farmers whose fields span the border. Does it count as an export if it gets harvested and carried over?

Green_Bear

Herzlos wrote: »

It's going to be hellish for farmers whose fields span the border. Does it count as an export if it gets harvested and carried over?

No it's not.
Because nothing is going to change on that border.

NI is not going to leave the EU.
I don't even think the UK is going to leave the EU.

I don't know why the public give so much weight as to what politicians say.
Brexit will not happen. Democracy will be ignored.

Reaper

Herzlos wrote: »

It's going to be hellish for farmers whose fields span the border. Does it count as an export if it gets harvested and carried over?

Yes.

"Slab" Murphy who I mentioned before was:

smuggling laundered fuel using two tanks that were in an outhouse straddling the Border. One half of the tank system was in the Republic, while the other half was in the North. The fuel was being smuggled across the Border in a pipe connecting the two systems, making the smuggling virtually impossible to detect.

URL="https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/raid-on-murphy-lands-uncovered-cross-border-oil-pipe-in-outhouse-1.2476753"]source[/URL

As well as oil 30,000 cigarettes were found on his farm and he smuggled grain and pigs.

Both a no deal Brexit and a with-deal Brexit without a proper customs plan (not "we'll sort that out later" May or "technology will somehow solve the problem" Boris) seems to me to be a recipe for smuggling and for funding terrorism.