gnvqsos Posted July 26, 2011 Share Posted July 26, 2011 The tax is to high on everything! The government rely totally on the tax payer to run this country, and will constantly add and increase's taxes until one day it totally and utterly backfires. Is there a tax on fireworks then?If the government cant rely on the taxpayer who should supply the resources,a genie or a Fairy godmother,or perhaps Striker Paul and his pocket money.Perhaps we should bring back piracy? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gnvqsos Posted July 26, 2011 Share Posted July 26, 2011 Ive pretty much given up drinking these days, used to go for 1 or 2 pints after work a few days a week with friends, but on pretty much minimum wage at the moment and I just cant afford it, last drink I had was a good few months ago now. Just 5 or 6 years ago I could go out and get a pint for under £2 in pretty much every pub near me. Now your lucky to find one under £3 Farmers Ale £1.95 a pint three types Nags head Loxley and other houses nearby. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chem1st Posted July 26, 2011 Author Share Posted July 26, 2011 Were they really distilling vodka? According to local news reports, they were brewing a liquid with a high enough amount of alcohol to possibly blind and / or kill you and attempting to sell it off in vodka bottles The news reports contained many many errors, designed to scare people away from purchasing DUTY free alcohol. In Russia a bottle of Vodka costs £2, but people still make their own and avoid paying the tax. They did try raising the price, but it backfired, and they had to reduce it. Alcohol is 'ethanol', the strength (abv %) corresponds to the amount of ethanol present. The problem with distilling is that people can make methanol (a different type of alcohol) accidentally by distilling at the wrong temperature, or an explosion can occur due to evaporation of ethanol and the resulting gas(fuel):air mixture in the immediate area. This is one of the reasons distilling is illegal, along with the tax issue. People are already distilling to avoid duty, many have and always will, but now the price is encouraging the amateurs, and accidents are likely to happen. This could be avoided if tax upon alcohol was lowered. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chem1st Posted July 26, 2011 Author Share Posted July 26, 2011 Surely the tax is added on at a percentage isn't it? So it wouldnt be the same amount off both, they would be reduced by the same percentage but how much that is depends on the original price. I assume this anyway haha, I dont actually know for sure, but most tax is dealt with in percentages For alcohol there is a fixed some of duty for different types of drinks, with different rates set for different bands of alcohol strength. VAT is then charged on top of this at a rate of 20% (however this is done after the price of the beverage has been set). Beer for example... £18.57 per hectoLitre per cent of alcohol in the beer. =£18.57 per 100 Litre per cent of alcohol. Take for example a 500ml can of stella (5%abv) 500ml is one 200th of a hectoliter. £(18.57/200) * 5 = DUTY = 46.425p with VAT @ 20% that is 55.71p. You won't find a supermarket selling half litre cans of stella for less than 56p. 60 pence maybe. Then they can make a profit. These taxation bands lead to some funny practices, just take a look at the ciders in your local off license, many of them will be 7.5% abv, but none will be 7.6% abv, the duty would be nearly twice as much due to how it is calculated. The tax on a bottle of vodka 70Cl, 37.5% is £6.70. You can pick one up from the shop for £8. They make a profit. You can easily make your own for under £1. Duty free vodka is massively profitable, more so than most illegal drugs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andikay Posted July 26, 2011 Share Posted July 26, 2011 Is the tax on alcohol too high? No, doubling it would provide more funds to pay for the problems associated with alcohol abuse. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Obelix Posted July 26, 2011 Share Posted July 26, 2011 Surely the tax is added on at a percentage isn't it? So it wouldnt be the same amount off both, they would be reduced by the same percentage but how much that is depends on the original price. I assume this anyway haha, I dont actually know for sure, but most tax is dealt with in percentages No, it's dutied at a fixed rate per litre depending on how it was produced. Beer duty is currently at a rate of £18.57 per hundred litres of product per cent in the beer. So a litre of 1% beer will have £0.18 of duty, a 5% beer will have £0.90 per litre on it. Wines and perries are split into bands. eg still wine 5.5% - 15% is £241.23 for a hundred litres, wines 15% -22% are £321.61 Spirits are charged at a straight rate by the alcohol content of £25.52 per litre of alcohol present, so you have to work it out from the ABV. Wines about 22% are classed as spirits even if not distilled. This makes the lower floor for supermarket whisky quite obvious - at 25.52 a litre then a 37% whiskey will be dutied at £7.08 minimum. Hence you can see just how little margin there is on the cheap stuff and why the quality and taste is so poor. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gnvqsos Posted July 26, 2011 Share Posted July 26, 2011 Cutting tax on alcohol would destroy the malt whisky industry. Supermarket cheap whisky is currently around 1/3 the price of a decent malt. Knock a fiver off a bottle of Tesco Whisky and you get the price down to £3.50. Do the same for a Glen Morangie and you drop the price down to £24.50. All of a sudden its gone from 3 times the price to nearly 8 times the price, and thousands of scottish workers will be out of a job, and the Government will just make up the tax loss elsewhere. I am sorry but 85% malt is exported and few jobs will be affected as the extra demand for blended will create work for the displaced.In fact it is like ly to increase jobs.Are you suggesting the raw cost of malt is 8 times the cost of blended liquor? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fibutton Posted July 26, 2011 Share Posted July 26, 2011 Blimey...this thread could be about drugs......street value, making your own, etc. The tax on everything in this country is too high, and how much good has it done the economy? As for whisky makers losing their jobs, I'm sorry that ANYONE has to lose their job, but give me a community worker working with poverty stricken families - well I know which I would fund first! Don't get me wrong, I love a glass of wine, and yes I am a smoker (albeit social). I work full time and pay my taxes, but I do feel ripped off when I pay about a third of my salary to the government already. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chem1st Posted July 26, 2011 Author Share Posted July 26, 2011 Blimey...this thread could be about drugs......street value, making your own, etc. The tax on everything in this country is too high, and how much good has it done the economy? As for whisky makers losing their jobs, I'm sorry that ANYONE has to lose their job, but give me a community worker working with poverty stricken families - well I know which I would fund first! Don't get me wrong, I love a glass of wine, and yes I am a smoker (albeit social). I work full time and pay my taxes, but I do feel ripped off when I pay about a third of my salary to the government already. This is the problem. Economic prohibition. It causes more problems than the good intended. They want to discourage people from drinking (and smoking), and by doing so, they force drinkers to consume alcohol (and tobacco) from the black market and lose tax revenue whilst diverting funds to criminals. The black market in cigarettes and alcohol is booming, and its is unregulated. Some of the products are of a very high quality, and some very low. Taxation shouldn't economically prohibit an activity. It should be used to ensure minimum standards, and any surplus used for the greater good. I want lower tax on cigarettes and alcohol (I currently avoid duty on tobacco 100%, and alcohol perhaps one third to one half of the time I'll consume homebrew, rather than imported lager (sometimes smuggled), supermarket wine etc.), but I want TAX introduced upon cannabis. I want it regulated by the state, and I want it taxed, I want the funds to go towards the greater good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chem1st Posted July 26, 2011 Author Share Posted July 26, 2011 No, doubling it would provide more funds to pay for the problems associated with alcohol abuse. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve The media is currently awash with stories about falling tax revenue wrt cigarettes and alcohol. And also decreasing sales of cigarettes and alcohol. The black market is booming. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.