Excise Tax

[nzbrewer]

"The influence of excise tax on alcohol and how pricing policies can minimise harm from alcohol consumption."

[Kempicus]

I was reading this earlier...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7090864.stm

[Stu McKinlay]

so as tax increases, you lower the cost of production by usnig cheap simple sugars instead of malt.
common sense, simple common sense (for any brewery run by money grubbing wine drinkers).

[Kempicus]

I'd shift into making RTD's and cheap sherry....;0)

[James P]

Another "the Government knows best" slogan.

Increasing taxes to reduce alcohol consumption is bollocks. Alcoholics will go without food, children will not get feed and food banks get more clients.... again the Government knows best....

[Reviled]

I agree that alcohol can be just as bad as drugs in the wrong hands, but its like anything really...

"But Professor Ian Gilmore, president of the Royal College of Physicians and chairman of the Health Alcohol Alliance, said it was time to treat alcohol in a similar way to drugs."

If they treat alcohol in a similair way to drugs, but dont make it illegal, how is that going to work? And we all know that prohibition wouldnt work either...

[Nick]

Well know fact that alcohol consumption goes up in hard economic times.
Another well known fact is that tax revenues drop during hard economic times due to unemployment. I expect tobacco and FBT to hike too.

It makes sense from a govt. perspective to increase taxes on things that people will use more of.
Expect a publicity campaign targeting tax dodgers soon too. The IRD will go into overdrive auditing the small businessman in an effort to pay the politicians and their bureaucracy. :-(

[nzbrewer]

In hard economic times more people start home brewing

[nzbrewer]

It is about creating/changing socially responsible attitudes towards alcohol. What is and isn't acceptable. (look at Belgium and France)

NZ'ers have a scarcity attitude about life, which comes from the immigrants when they arrived here. It has only been a handful of generations and the types of people that arrived here where similar, they were common people looking to make a better life for themselves. When you are working hard, to just get by, drowning the day away with alcohol seems reasonable. NZ'ers still has this attitude of doing enough to get by, and she'll be right. There are only a small percentage of people that strive for excellence and quality (see the small independent craft brewers of NZ). The Warehouse typifies NZ.

The large producers of alcohol are run by the off spring of these people, and they go to there 9 to 5 corporate jobs, and they are dictated to by their shareholders to make profit. And profit comes before everything else including the social good or quality of product.

This attitude is also reflected in the lowering of the drinking age to 18. At the time I thought that this will help make NZ'er more responsible towards drinking. How naive I was to be living in my utopian dream state. The one thing I forgot to factor in was the she'll be right attitude. I was hoping that people would actually ID young people, and this would be enforced, similar to the US. WRONG. I would be quite happy now for the drinking age to go back to 20 as things aren't going to change.

We are going to have to put forward a case so strong, for progressive tax which benefits small producers, that I believe it may nearly be impossible to achieve as we will be pitching it to the very people that we are trying to change. She'll be right.

WOW that was random, but hopefully some points for discussion

[Stu McKinlay]

Interesting - three of the big four wine producers in europe charge ZERO excise on still wine.

[nzbrewer]

Maybe the govt. would make more money on a sugar or carb tax.

[Nick]

Holy brain dump batman. Your right on the button though on every count. Sad thing that to change this mindset would reduce govenment revenue hence they will always be seen to be addressing the issue without actually fixing it. An old game that's been played for centuries.

Instead of lobbying parliment directly on this issue, have you considered a more oblique angle like the drive to promote small businesses in general, unique N.Z cottage industries or whatever? You might find powerfull allies in unexpected places and get the break on your excise tax as an secondary benefit to your "primary goal"

[Stu McKinlay]

Interesting news from abroad


I got there via a link from this article that my brother (who lives in the borders) sent me.