Thursday 19 December 2013

Ditch the alcohol duty escalator

I discussed the appallingly high rate of tax that the UK government puts on alcohol in my recent IEA paper Aggressively Regressive so I wholeheartedly support the new campaign to end the alcohol duty escalator.




For all the neo-temperance lobby's rhetoric about "pocket money prices", we in Britain pay a ridiculous amount of money for our drinks, most of which goes straight to the government. Hardly any other country in the world exploits drinkers like the UK and yet the coalition is currently committed to jacking up the price of wine and spirits above the rate of inflation for years to come. 



Please take a few seconds to visit the campaign website and let your MP know that enough is enough.

3 comments:

Ant said...

This will give you a giggle

http://thenewliberty.me/2013/11/19/the-thieving-state-or-why-you-shouldnt-complain-about-uk-booze-prices/

Curmudgeon said...

The pocket money prices meme really is one of the most dishonest, tendentious, think-of-the-children pieces of crap ever devised.

Well, that and Internet porn filtering...

Barman said...

The problem is that if you reduce the tax on booze (or petrol, fags, etc.) the gubberment will have to raise tax elsewhere to make up the shortfall..

So the real issue is not that we are being taxed too much but that the gubberment is pissing too much of our money away every year...

Campaigns like this allow the gubberment to make small concessions (reducing green taxes, 1p off beer, etc.) while simply taking the money from elsewhere.