Any experts on duty/licensing etc?

[hypnoticmonkey]

I had a brain wave the other day...

We know that you can brew 7000 litres of CIDER a year without having to pay duty on what you sell (as long as you register first.) We also know that we are not allowed to sell any wine to anyone without registering, paying duty etc (a long process, I gather!)

My thought, then, was can we sell services? i.e. can we offer to take someone's fruit, process it, turn it into wine and then give it back to them? All in return for payment. The fruit never changes ownership, and you're never selling them fruit, you're just saving them the hassle of homebrewing it themselves.

I was thinking for fermenting 4lb of blackberries, for example, one could charge a fee of £15 and 4lb of blackberries. So, in effect, they're handing you 8lb of fruit and some cash and some time later you give them a gallon of wine. (Also, chances are, you've made a gallon out of the 4lb you got from them and kept that for yourself!)

I *think* this would be legal, but obviously would need to check up on it first...

 

[graysalchemy]

I think you would find that that loophole is closed otherwise every Thomas Richard and Harriet would be doing it.

The fruit is no longer fruit once it has been fermented it is wine, which will be liable to duty.

Also technically you can not give away a bottle of homebrew to a third party.

 

[hypnoticmonkey]

Hi GA,

If it weren't for the comment you just made about giving away your homebrewed booze, I'd have never looked that up and never found this:

http://www.ukhomebrew.info/phpbb2/viewt ... 198459b605

Which states that homebrew must be for your own domestic consumption. Therefore, (technically) no giving to friends and absolutely no giving to other people who've paid you to do it for them.

Well that clears that up!

 

[graysalchemy]

Yes I think our Alemans answer

Under the terms of the act in 1963 when
the licence to brew at home was removed, it stressed that it was for
personal use only . . . I would guess that could be broadened slightly
to include the household (within the home) of the brewer . . . but
giving it away outside of that is no longer considered personal consumption.

Sums it up

 

[calumscott]

"own domestic consumption" is a myth.

The law is very simple, you don't need to be registered to:

1) make wine, made-wine, cider, mead and anything else that isn't spirits or beer (because the anything else is pretty much "made wine") so long as it is not made for sale
2) make beer (with a couple of exceptionally high gravity exceptions) for your own "domestic use".

Note the difference between "consumption" and "use".

As to the original question, the technicalities of ownership of ingredients will be disregarded when it comes to the law surrounding the tax/duty position as the protection of the state's revenue will come higher in the priority than the contract between you and the recipient of the finished product.

 

[BooBrewer]

"own domestic consumption" is a myth.

The law is very simple, you don't need to be registered to:

1) make wine, made-wine, cider, mead and anything else that isn't spirits or beer (because the anything else is pretty much "made wine") so long as it is not made for sale
2) make beer (with a couple of exceptionally high gravity exceptions) for your own "domestic use".

Note the difference between "consumption" and "use".

As to the original question, the technicalities of ownership of ingredients will be disregarded when it comes to the law surrounding the tax/duty position as the protection of the state's revenue will come higher in the priority than the contract between you and the recipient of the finished product.

Oh the beauty of the British legal & revenue system.
Due to the nature of my job I actually hold a personal alcohol license. If I went by the letter of the law I should carry this lamenated card around with me at all times. I don't because the fine for losing said card is ridiculous

 

[nobyipa]

"own domestic consumption" is a myth.

The law is very simple, you don't need to be registered to:

1) make wine, made-wine, cider, mead and anything else that isn't spirits or beer (because the anything else is pretty much "made wine") so long as it is not made for sale
2) make beer (with a couple of exceptionally high gravity exceptions) for your own "domestic use".

Note the difference between "consumption" and "use".

As to the original question, the technicalities of ownership of ingredients will be disregarded when it comes to the law surrounding the tax/duty position as the protection of the state's revenue will come higher in the priority than the contract between you and the recipient of the finished product.

Oh the beauty of the British legal & revenue system.
Due to the nature of my job I actually hold a personal alcohol license. If I went by the letter of the law I should carry this lamenated card around with me at all times. I don't because the fine for losing said card is ridiculous

?
does home brewing have to be in your own home or can you use someone elses home to brew in?
i have a brew i brewed at home and is now conditioning round me mates home in bottles does that become his home-brew legally or is it my home-brew?
if someone helps you brew one of your brews at your home does the beer become both of ours to be drunk in the home it was produced in?
or is it illegal to brew in a home thats not yours?

 

[Pjam]

i have a brew i brewed at home and is now conditioning round me mates home in bottles does that become his home-brew legally or is it my home-brew?

:shock: I would expect a knock at the door ...... or maybe I should say both doors. you and your mate should expect to share a cell and don't try brewing that prison brew, it's undrinkable :sick:


:lol: :lol: :lol: ............... only joking (I hope)

 

[adomant]

My thought, then, was can we sell services? i.e. can we offer to take someone's fruit, process it, turn it into wine and then give it back to them? All in return for payment. The fruit never changes ownership, and you're never selling them fruit, you're just saving them the hassle of homebrewing it themselves.

I remember the case of HMRC vs a wine kit supplier who had the same idea, basically you would buy a kit and pay them to ferment and bottle it for you. They came unstuck because clearly they where never going to ferment each customers wine kit in an individually labelled demijohn but were going to make economies of scale by brewing a big batch and splitting it up. HMRC won the case on the basis that it was impossible to establish that the bottled wine which the customer received came from the specific kit that they had purchased. The wine company had a licence to produce the wine but were investigating a way to avoid duty.

I think this system would require that you are licensed and that you can prove you are genuinely providing a service rather than avoiding duty.

 

[morethanworts]

Yes I think our Alemans answer

Under the terms of the act in 1963 when
the licence to brew at home was removed, it stressed that it was for
personal use only . . . I would guess that could be broadened slightly
to include the household (within the home) of the brewer . . . but
giving it away outside of that is no longer considered personal consumption.

Sums it up

It's great to see someone citing case law of some sort, Adomant, even unreferenced. It's not always possible to have a simple, concise answer for everything in legal matters. Citing snippets from either statute or HMRC guidance doesn't necessarily give the full picture. Case law does matter and the absence (if there is) of any case law in much of this area probably tells us quite a lot. On the couple of occasions I have taken legal advice and action in regard to my own work (nothing to do with brewing), the lawyers have immediately started quoting case law (someone v someone, 1992 etc.) and how my own case stacks up in the light of it. Quite an interesting discussion on that as this thread here develops.

In your example, a commercial venture was involved and my layman's guess would be that it will continue to be at this point that a judge will view transgressions as going beyond the spirit of any relaxations in the restrictions for homebrewing. That, and perhaps anything of significant scale.

As an aside, maybe someone can refer us to the 'act' Aleman cites, in which the 1963 changes were laid down? Here's a list, just on wiki (the only one I could quickly google), of Acts of Parliament 1960-69. I can't see what it would come under. Maybe the changes were effectively just made under the 'chancellor's powers' at the time. There were obviously changes, it would just be good to view original documents to see the spirit and wording of the law, and its context.