Donald Tusk’s government came to power promising to regulate the e-cigarette market, which is particularly popular among young people. The plan failed. The industry of importers of Chinese e-cigarettes engaged not only influential PR agencies and lobbyists, but also lawyers with strong connections within the current administration, paying millions of złoty in the process.
I previously wrote about how the agency, SEC Newgate, attempted to commission me to produce material targeting a competitor of their client. As a result of this coordinated lobbying effort, the Ministry of Finance, headed by Andrzej Domański, under the guise of tightening the system, began introducing regulations that not only fail to regulate the market but specifically target certain products, while leaving others exempt from excise duty. This results in substantial losses to the state budget and enormous profits for Chinese e-cigarettes’ traders, who are effectively outmaneuvering the tax authorities.
Among other measures, the Ministry introduced regulations imposing excise duty on less popular disposable devices, the so-called induction models. The main market players quickly circumvented even this restriction by promptly offering a product not covered by the new rules, as its heating element is not induction-based.