Aled by high taxes
20 October 2019
YOUR piece may create the impression that beer in Australia is cheap; far from it ('Gin and vodka taxes pay for cheap beer and wine', October 13).
Aussies pay a massive and disproportionate premium for a frothy ale via the fourth highest beer tax in the world.
At $2.23 per litre for packaged beer, we pay 19 times more beer tax than Germany ($0.12), 16 times more than Spain ($0.14), eight times more than the US ($0.28), six times more than Canada ($0.37), five times more than France ($0.47), and almost double that of New Zealand ($1.18). We pay 38.5 per cent more than the UK.
But wait, there's more. We also pay 10 per cent GST on top of the beer tax. And our beer tax rate is automatically increased every six months. In fact, it's been going up every six months for the last 35 years.
At 42 per cent of the retail price on a typical carton, tax is the single biggest cost in the price of Aussie-made beer. Of the $51.00 retail price, $21.35 is tax. It certainly isn't cheap.
Brett Heffernan
CEO
Brewers Association of Australia
This letter was published in the Sydney Morning Herald on 20 October 2019
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4/8/2019 Aussies pay too much beer tax... and it goes up again tomorrow
