Liquor duty rises most in 20 years
Hard times for hard liquor as the government thumps wine and spirit drinkers with a 4.55% tax excise rise.
Wine and spirit drinkers face their largest excise tax increase in 20 years with today’s 4.55% rise.
The duty on a bottle of wine will rise more than 12c a litre, bringing the total to $2.70 a litre.
But it’s even bigger for spirits drinkers, for whom 73% of the $34.99 cost of a standard bottle of spirits will go to the government in tax.
Brewers have also accompanied the increase with a further rise in their margins for beer. The excise rate increase is calculated from inflation for the year ending March.
New Zealand Winegrowers chief executive Philip Greganå said the excise take on New Zealand wine will rise to around $180 million in the next year.
“The timing of this increase could hardly be worse,” he said. “We have already had last October’s GST increase and now wineries face the largest excise increase in over 20 years.
"The chances of wineries being able to recover the increase from the market seem very slim as a result.”
Mr Gregan said the excise policy was failing to meet the objectives set for it.
“There is a commonly held view that wine excise is a tax on consumers. This is a misconception. Excise is paid by producers and in the current environment increases are not passed onto consumers.
”This has been the case for some time and will be the case again this year. The end result is more pain for producers.”
Nevil Gibson
Fri, 01 Jul 2011
Fri, 01 Jul 2011
© All content copyright NBR. Do not reproduce in any form without permission, even if you have a paid subscription.
Liquor duty rises most in 20 years
15639