Member's statement: European Commission Regulations: "Alliance Tax"

Member's statement by Dr Steve Aiken OBE on 19 January 2026.

MLA

Dr Steve Aiken OBE

Party at the time

Ulster Unionist Party

Date

19 January 2026

Type

Member's statement

Business

Members' Statements

Heading

European Commission Regulations: "Alliance Tax"

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5321982

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Members may not be aware of European Commission regulations COM/2023/258 final and 2023/0156 (COD) and their annexes. The regulations set out EU revenue-raising customs proposals on e-commerce that were to apply from 1 March 2028 but have now been brought forward to July 2026. The names of the regulations are a mouthful to recite, so, for the rest of my statement, I will simplify them by calling them the "tax of the rigorous implementers", which can be shortened to the "Alliance tax". The changes rule that the duty relief and regulation exemption from customs duty for consignments valued at under €150 are to be rescinded and that a flat €3 fee will be applied to all non-excise goods that are imported. In simple terms, that will mean that any parcel coming in from outside the EU to an EU-designated customs area such as Northern Ireland will be subject to that charge. Additionally, in order to pay for the new EU Customs Authority, an extra charge of €2 per item will be added to the Alliance tax in the near future, bringing it up to €5 per item. The Alliance tax raise will be collected by HMRC and then passed to the EU. Detailed data on parcel transactions is not available. However, having done some calculations on the Alliance tax, I would like to share with you some of my initial outline figures. There are 768,900 households in Northern Ireland. If we assume that those households receive three parcels a week — I know that many homes, including mine, receive more — from the likes of Amazon, Evri or whatever, the revenue from normal parcel traffic — that figure times three, times 52, times five — would equal €599·7 million per annum. If we added to that our business traffic, with 81,135 registered businesses in Northern Ireland — the maths for that is that figure times 10, times 52, times five — the revenue would equal €210·9 million. That would mean a total Alliance tax of €810·6 million or £703·7 million per annum going to Brussels. That is £703·7 million of revenue that will be sucked out of Northern Ireland families, businesses, farmers and our economy. That £703 million Alliance tax could go a long way towards fixing our crumbling water infrastructure, paying for 7,500 PSNI officers, fixing our education system and even helping to fix Lough Neagh. However, the Alliance tax will go straight to the EU, not our Northern Ireland Executive. The Alliance tax is just one of many Windsor framework charges that we will be subject to. When the Alliance tax is extorted from us, let that name remind you just who champions the EU at every opportunity.

450 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 14:12 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

Disagree with this assessment?

Classifications can be challenged. A person reads every challenge, and any change is recorded publicly above with its reason.

Challenge this classification