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Wine drinkers set to pay more tax

The government is exploring a new tax on strong alcoholic drinks.

If you enjoy a nice bottle of wine, chances are you may soon need to shell out more for your bottle of plonk, after a government minister suggested a new tax may be introduced.

A super-strength tax

The government has already introduced a levy on ‘super-strength’ lager. Back in March the Chancellor, George Osborne, announced there would be a 25% rise in the tax on beer containing more than 7.5% alcohol, the equivalent of an extra 25p per can.

And now the Department of Health has confirmed it would like to see that extended.

According to Anne Milton, the minister for Public Health, the department is in talks with the Treasury about the possibility of further levies, arguing that super-strength taxes are a step in the right direction.

She highlighted that the alcohol industry had already reacted to the levy on beer, cutting the alcohol strength to fall below the new duty level, and suggested this would continue if extended to other forms of booze.

Currently, it is unclear exactly where the government will draw the line on what constitutes a ‘strong’ wine. However, Milton did point out that the average bottle of wine is now around 12.5% proof, compared to 9% back in the 1970s.

The Alcohol Strategy

The government wants to publish an ‘Alcohol Strategy’ by the end of the year, which will outline its plans on how to tackle the nation’s drinking. That’s likely when we will find out more about whether it wants to go forward with an extension of the super-strength levy.

But the Department of Health has said that by December next year it wants 80% of alcoholic drinks to have warnings on their labels outlining how many units each bottle/can contains, and guidance on healthy consumption, in much the same way that cigarette packets now carry health warnings.

The UK and booze

It’s perhaps fair to say that, as a nation, the UK has a somewhat unhealthy relationship with alcohol.

According to the charity Alcohol Concern, more than ten million adults in England alone are now drinking more than the recommended daily limit, with two and a half million of them drinking double the limit.

It’s not just adults that are getting stuck into the booze – a study in 2009 found that half of 11-15 year-olds had already had an alcoholic drink.

Indeed, a study last year by polling firm Eurobarometer named Britain as the binge drinking capital of Europe, with 12% of us admitting to drinking seven or more drinks in a single session. Just a fifth of Brits said they had not consumed booze in the preceding year.

The cost of alcohol

And the cost of our drinking goes far beyond giving our livers a bit of a kicking.

Each year, cases related to alcohol cost the NHS a whopping £2.7bn. According to the NHS’s own figures, in 2009/10 there were more than a million alcohol-related admissions to hospital, a rise of 12% on the year before, and double the figure from 2002/3.

And according to Drink Aware, alcohol is a factor in one in three burglaries and half of all street crimes. Alcohol-related crime and disorder now costs the taxpayer as much as £13bn a year.

Booze is costing all of us, whether we are drinkers or not, in the wallet. Clearly something needs to be done.

The Scotland issue

The government should probably pay close attention to what is currently going on in Scotland when drawing up its Alcohol Strategy.

The governing Scottish National Party this week announced it was to have a second go at installing a minimum price for a unit of alcohol, in an attempt to battle the misuse of alcohol. The party failed in its initial attempt to install such a minimum price in the last parliament, but has refused to drop the issue.

If successful, it may provide a decent alternative to simply taxing the most alcoholic of wines, beers and spirits.

Tax, tax, tax

However, there will no doubt be irritation among many that once again the preferred option is to increase tax. For successive governments, the answer to all of society’s ills appears to be to have a fiddle with tax rates.

Concerned about the environment? Then let’s have some green taxes, to cut down on carbon emissions.

Kids getting fat? Why not introduce a fat tax on unhealthy foods, that will soon get the little porkers in shape!

People getting hammered and causing grief? Well, time to slap a new tax on booze!

Is hitting us with yet more new taxes really the way to deal with our alcohol issues? What do you think?

More: The new bank mis-selling scandal | Wine is for drinking, not for investing in!

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Comments



  • 27 January 2012

    Decent wine, as stated by Poorpensioner costs between £6 and £10 a bottle. I think this is a fair price, and further taxation would be unfair on those civilized adults who want to share a bottle at home with their partner of an evening, or have the odd glass with a meal at home. I'm going to put the cat amongst the pigeons here, and say that, having been on wine appreciation courses, and consumed many a bottle, I personally find that an OK white wine is generally 12.5%, with the better chardonnays and pinot grigios hitting 13-13.5% and for pretty much all red wine, 13.5 % is the minimum I would buy. A lot of this is preference, but I like my wine dry rather than sweet, and the higher alcohol content is just a consequence of more of the sugars being converted to alcohol. Now how can it possibly be right to penalise people because of their preference or taste? It's not! Realistically, is there truly an argument for higher taxation on wine because of public drunkenness? Wine bought in a pub, or a bar is already at a premium, with a bottle costing over double what you would pay if you bought it in a supermarket or off licence, and if bought by the glass, a bottles worth is more like 3 or 4 times the price from a shop. Let's be objective about this. Does anyone really think that the people paying £4.50 for a glass of wine are the same people fighting after last orders, urinating in the streets, and filling A&E waiting rooms with self-inflicted injuries? In the same vein, those buying a bottle or two to drink in the privacy of their own home, or with friends are equally innocent. It's far more likely that it's the teenagers and young 20-somethings getting off their rockers on cheap spirits bought in the supermarkets and drunk whilst getting ready to go out, because the existing taxes have made drinking in the pubs unreasonably pricey? I just looked and found that you can get a 75 cl bottle of Lambrusco for £2.39 in Sainsbury's. That's 5.5%, so just over 4 units for less than the price of a magazine. They do a 70cl bottle of basic vodka for £9.29! At 37.5% abv that's 26.3 units for less than a tenner. How on earth can that be right? It's not! Whilst I don't agree with it, this government, and the last, seem to want to take the approach of punish the many for the actions of the few. Sadly, the drinkers who get out of hand tend to be the ones who go for the cheap options, and not the more expensive stuff. The government's solution, if they stuck to their ethos, should be to leave anyone drinking the decent wine alone, and focus their attention on true binge drinking, and in my opinion, that starts with dealing with these ridiculously cheap options. I’m in no way, shape or form, advocating a vicious hike in supermarket prices on all alcohol, but a ban on the "bargain basement" basics and saver brand booze would go a long way to prevent new cases of alcoholism. I don’t believe, as some commenters have stated, that this could potentially lead to an increase in people buying bootleg booze. Alcohol isn’t like cigarettes. Most smokers indulge their vice daily, smoking anywhere from 10 to 60 a day, and turn to bootleg cigarettes because they’re addicted. They’ve got to get their fix somewhere. Most drinkers aren’t addicted. Strong alcohol like spirits will still be available. They’ll just be sensibly priced to make it a least attractive option to the young and impressionable. The sad truth is, if a serious alcoholic wants to drink badly enough he or she will drink methylated spirits, so yes, they may try to save some money by buying counterfeit booze. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never been offered bootleg alcohol. It’s a big business, trying to fool small retailers, pubs and bars. Let’s face it, for your average alcoholic; the local off licence is probably more convenient for a fix. The true solution to this is to treat society like adults. If you treat people like children they will behave that way. Stop trying to control the addictions of the population through ever increasing taxes. It doesn't work. Smokers will keep smoking, alcoholics will still drink. Yes, those things which are proven to be bad for us need to be controlled in some way, and the costs which these vices inflict upon the population as a whole need to be recouped. I genuinely believe there is a case for the decriminalisation of cannabis. The powers that be seem to think that if cannabis were legal we’d all rush out and buy it, and chaos would ensue as the entire population proceeded to get stoned out of their minds. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Many people dislike smoking full stop, whether it be cannabis or cigarettes, cigars or pipes. Many more will stick to their (perhaps poorly informed) principles that it’s a wicked, evil substance. Some, like me, have used it in the past and realise that at its very worst, if overused intensely, it can be linked with mental health issues, but usually only in particularly susceptible people. For your average individual the worst cannabis can do, albeit temporarily, is make you a bit lacklustre, and rob you of your ambition and drive. The facts are that it’s much less dangerous and addictive than cigarettes or alcohol, and that decriminalisation would ensure that it can be cheaply and safely produced, sold in a regulated manner, at a strength deemed to be acceptable by whatever body regulates it. Its low production cost would allow for it to be sold more cheaply than its current street value, whilst still making plenty of revenue for the tax man. If I’m honest, I’d be tempted to stick with the street prices. It’s what people are used to paying, and it would help alleviate our county’s current financial issues more quickly. Before anyone starts bleating that "it's a gateway drug", the only reason cannabis has ever lead to users trying anything else is its illegality, which has meant people have to go to underground, to less than reputable suppliers to acquire it. These dealers are often unscrupulous, and greedy, and would often push the harder, more addictive drugs, knowing if they could hook someone then they have a regular repeat customer. If you could buy it legally somewhere you would never need be exposed to anything more dangerous. This would also alleviate pressures on the police, saving the public thousands more. Allow us to make our own decisions without trying to coerce us with taxation. Treat us, the population, the voters who gave you the power to represent us, with respect. A great deal of us are intelligent, and don't need to be hand held or molly coddled. True, some of us are not, and behave foolishly, but deal with us fairly and wisely and we'll respond in kind

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  • 18 November 2011

    According to the HMRC notes accompanying the high strength beer duty, the measure is predicted to be 'revenue neutral' because of the cost of administering the tax. So beer drinkers pay more, but the money is wasted by civil servants filing the forms. Why not have those HMRC employees digging and filling in holes instead? The unnoticed collateral damage from the high strength beer duty, aimed explicitly at such delights as Tennents Super and Special Brew, are the barley wine beers which used to be the pride of British brewing. My favourite type of beer, and the area in which beer quality most matches that of wine. But most breweries have scrapped those beers because of the impossible tax situation. Thanks Carling, thanks Tennents.

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  • 18 November 2011

    Not for me - I go the Le Clerc supermarche in Coutances every 6 weeks and stock up with all my favorite wines. Never could understand why people in UK pay these over inflated prices for basic rubbish wine in UK. French wines of various areas are avialable which you cannot buy here in the UK. Does help though if one has a house there. 3 times a year they have wine festivals - buy 4 bottles and get 2 free - great. Oh and by the way the French pay on average 12p tax on a bottle of wine - I dread to think what you pay in UK. TB

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