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October 5th 2007: Yesmoke launches its first attack against Big Tobacco.
After receiving its license, Yesmoke has presented to the European Commission a denunciation against the so-called Minimum Price* in effect in Italy, which forbids the retail sale of cigarettes at less than 3.40 euro for 20 cigarettes.
The complaint is the first step towards an exciting target that will be easier to reach than one might think.
It is the first blow to the cigarette manufacturing cartel, creating for them in Italy financial damage that can amount to more than 1 billion euro, funds that will be directed to the State treasury (800 million will come from Philip Morris alone).
And who are the parasites that will stand up for their sponsor?
Yesmoke wants to point out the connivance that the cigarette manifacturers uses every day to swindle money out of smokers, spotlighting, with names and surnames, the corrupt, the fools and the brown-nosers.
The figures
In Italy today, the price of cigarettes, “to safeguard public health” cannot go below the so-called Minimum Price, which is currently 3.40 euro per pack.
The European Union, in perfect agreement with Yesmoke, has officially declared that it is prepared to start up Violation Procedures** against Italy for the decision to fix a minimum price for cigarettes as a way to discourage smoking instead of using the instrument of taxation. The EU continued: “The Minimum Price falsifies free competition and protects the interests and profit margins of the manufactures”.
This means that the Minimum Price must be abolished, with good manners or bad.
This measure forces Yesmoke to sell its products at 3.40 euro, earning a profit of 250% in Italy. This is nothing compared to Philip Morris's 500% profit.
When the Minimum Price has been abolished in Italy, Yesmoke will finally be able to reduce its cigarette prices from 3.40 to 3 euro.
To be coherent, in response to this more than legitimate move, the Italian State will have to bring the low price of Yesmokes to a level judged useful to dissuade their consumption. But as the Minimum Price will no longer exist, the State will have to raise taxes systematically on all cigarettes.
And this is where the fun starts: the amount of the taxes will have to be defined taking as reference the cigarettes sold at the lowest price. These will most probably Yesmokes, a Premium Brand that will cost very little.
At this point the additional taxes that the Italian State will have to apply on all cigarettes, to bring the lowest prices to a level (probably 3.40 euro as it was before) that can dissuade people from smoking, will have to be 40 eurocents per pack.
So while Yesmoke cigarettes, as a result of the 40 eurocent increase, will go back up from 3 to 3.40 euro, Marlboros, currently sold at 4.10 euro, will have to rise to 4,50 if Big Tobacco wants to maintain the same profit margin.
Philip Morris may decide to keep its price at 4.10, the same as today, but in that case, it will have to give up a profit of 40 cents per pack, transforming this amount, almost by magic, into a sizable revenue for the State treasury.
In this last case, seeing that 2 billion packs of Marlboro cigarettes are sold every year in Italy, the damage to Philip Morris, coming only from Marlboros, will amount to 800 million euro - which will go to the coffers of the Italian State.
The "Political price"
The Italian Supreme Court, with sentence of December 21st 2001, has definitively declared that Philip Morris “has set up in Italy a stable organization whose existence has led to tax evasion of 120,000 billion lire (60 billion Euro) appropriated from all forms of direct and indirect taxation”.
However, so far, Big Tobacco, in this country of coglioni (dickheads), has never disbursed a single euro. But are we really sure that tax evasion worthy of the Guinness Book of Records, like the amount Philip Morris has realized in that “hunting reserve” called Italy, can be so easily shelved, and then sent through the shredding machine?
Today Phillip Morris with its Marlboros is earning more than a tax collector, and taking advantage of this windfall, there is an army of parasites, occult supporters and brown-nosers of all species and of all political colours.
So, in its battle to turn the cigarette producers' illicit profits into revenue for the Italian State Yesmoke has made a demonstrative and strategic decision: it will put onto the market a cigarette of top quality at cost price.
This is the so-called “Political Price” (3 Euro), which Yesmoke will be able to offer in Italy as soon as the Minimum Price is eliminated.
Yesmoke's project goes well beyond competition against other producers. Yesmoke is a battleship ready to direct all its resources to the financial downfall of the cigarette manufacturing cartel. The final objective is to extirpate the Big Tobacco blister from society.
* The Minimum Price for cigarettes obliges the manufacturers of lower cost cigarettes to raise their prices to a minimum set by the State. In theory, they would earn more; but in fact this does not happen, because consumers, choosing from a selection of products having the same price, are led to choose the better-known and more advertised brands.
So, this increase to the minimum price does not help local manufacturers, nor does it bring greater income to the State; it only boosts the turnover of the cartel of the multinational giants. If there had been, instead, a generalised tax increase on all cigarette brands, the State would have benefited from higher revenues and the big cigarette multinationals, Philip Morris first of all, would have had to reduce their profits to remain competitive.
** The EU Violation Procedure (Procedura di Infrazione) is activated when it is believed that a Member State has violated an obligation imposed by Community law. It can be invoked by the European Commission (article 226 the EC Treaty) or by any Member State against another Member State (article 227 of the EC Treaty).
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