Are high alcohol duties good for our drinks industry and drinkers?

[Bulgarian]

Oh yes they do. I think it is you that can't add up.

 

So, your saying that people will pay for a £28 bottle of whiskey because it's a "premium product" but if it went down to £23 everyone would stop buying it and start buying the cheap muck instead ?

 

How do you work that out, all they have done is gone down in price by £5, the premium whiskey drinkers won't suddenly decide to buy £2 Lidl stuff because it's so cheap, if they wanted cheap they wouldn't have been buying the £28 stuff.

[chem1st]

It might sound odd but I think high alcohol duties are good for our drinks industry and for drinkers?

 

Imagine a bottle of good malt whisky that sells at £28. Compare it to a bottle of Lidl own brand Scotch at say £7. The malt is 4 times the price but still sells because it is a premium product. Knock £5 duty off each and you have a £23 bottle of malt competeing with a £2 supermaket whisky that is less than 1/10 the price.

 

Similarly knock 50p off the price of a pint of beer and supermarkets would be virtually giving it away. Pubs would never compete.

 

Duty raised from alcohol is easy to collect and saves us paying some other tax anyhow. So on ballance I think high alcohol duty is more of a benefit than a bind.

 

What do others think?

 

It's not good for the drinks industry, the high rate of duty lowers their potential profits.

 

Alcohol DUTY is a very regressive tax and its hurts the poorest the most. Many of them buy beverages that cost near on 100% of the DUTY. As a proportion of their income this is high compared to the well off.

 

High DUTY also increases the black market of alcohol, and then you get retarded people trying to distill ethanol, doing it wrong and selling their vodka (with a high methanol content and thus making people go blind).

 

High DUTY = higher prices for drinkers and that is not good.

[chimay]

I'd like to make a sensible post about less drinking less health problems better for the NHS but I'm too drunk on cheap red wine.

[HeadingNorth]

Alcohol DUTY is a very regressive tax and its hurts the poorest the most.

 

 

That is a ridiculous statement. The "poorest" can't afford to buy alcohol and therefore pay zero duty.

[HeadingNorth]

So, your saying that people will pay for a £28 bottle of whiskey because it's a "premium product" but if it went down to £23 everyone would stop buying it and start buying the cheap muck instead ?

 

How do you work that out, all they have done is gone down in price by £5, the premium whiskey drinkers won't suddenly decide to buy £2 Lidl stuff because it's so cheap, if they wanted cheap they wouldn't have been buying the £28 stuff.

 

There probably are some people who are willing to pay four times as much for decent whisky, but not willing to pay 11 times as much.

 

I suspect that you're mostly right, and that there aren't enough such people to seriously damage the premium whisky industry.

[melthebell]

That is a ridiculous statement. The "poorest" can't afford to buy alcohol and therefore pay zero duty.

errrrrm

 

doesnt most people buy alcohol?

also theres no type of person that becomes alcoholic?

[HeadingNorth]

errrrrm

 

doesnt most people buy alcohol?

 

If they don't have money, they don't.

[melthebell]

If they don't have money, they don't.

if they dont have money they either use other money or beg or steal?

EVERYBODY has money, it just depends how its used or where it comes from

[eckerslike]

If they don't have money, they don't.

 

Some of the poorest people in our society manage very expensive drug habits.

[eckerslike]

I realise I might be being a bit thick but i'm not sure I see your point

 

I think the point is that if you added £50 to the price of both a Big Mac and a fillet steak the Big Mac would rather lose its appeal.