signed
I think one of the key points here is:
Why does anybody think that taxing strong beer specifically will have any impact on alcoholics or binge drinkers?
Issues of what exactly causes antisocial behaviour when drunk aside, does anybody seriously think that alcoholics and people out to get drunk won't either find the money from somewhere, drink more lower strength beers, or drink something with less tax on it. When I lived in Hungary for a bit you could see that the pissheads all drank wine as it was cheaper, lovely purple vomit :sick:
Assuming that you want to use taxation as a disincentive to drink alcohol. Wouldn't a simple and fair method to be to tax all alcoholic drinks in direct relation to their abv? That way if you consume more alcohol you are taxed more regardless of your preferred drink, simple and fair. That way one industry and one set of preferences isn't unfairly picked on.
Does anybody know how the tax breaks down for cider, wine, spirits and beer? I am fairly sure the taxation isn't uniform.
350ml of vodka (37.5% abv) at asda is 5.25 while 330ml of Chimay Blue cap is 1.90, so you can buy 2.73 bottles of chimay for the same price. Call it 3, if those 3 bottles were concentrated into one which was was 3 times as strong and you got 1/3 of the volume that would be 1 330ml bottle at 27%abv so you are getting more alcohol for your money per ml in the vodka (and another 20ml) should you be concerned about getting pissed. Now obviously the price difference isn't just about tax but still...
One 2l bottle of westons scrumpy at 7.5% is 4.22 while less than 1l of Chimay blue is 5.70. Now the blue cap is a bit stronger but the price difference is massive, you are paying more than twice as much ( 0.575 vs 0.211p per ml) for the Chimay but it is only 1.2 times as strong.
As a measure for reducing how much people drink it just doesn't add up.
edit to get my maths straight
