4 ms·
> Personally, I'm mixed on what I think an ideal alcohol tax would be. It seems to me that we now have the ability to track the actual volume of pure ethanol cr
by jabl 5y ago
> Personally, I'm mixed on what I think an ideal alcohol tax would be. It seems to me that we now have the ability to track the actual volume of pure ethanol created and sold, something that recently post-prohibition regulators probably were not capable of doing[0]. On the flip side I do think that there is some social utility in driving up the cost of high proof distilled alcohol via tax; the time before prohibition really shows that cheap distilled spirits tends to make a bit of a mess of things. This could probably be accomplished by a progressive taxation system per gram of ethanol based on the ABV above a certain point.
Broadly I agree, though I think in practice it would make life easier if this would be specified in "bands" rather than directly proportional to the alcohol content. The giant industrial scale producers can certainly produce mega-batch after mega-batch of identical product, but for small scale "craft" producers with more variability it sounds like a bureaucratic nightmare to have a different tax level for each batch.
- maccard 5y ago> The giant industrial scale producers can certainly produce mega-batch after mega-batch of identical product, but for small scale "craft" producers with more variability it sounds like a bureaucratic nightmare to have a different tax level for each batch. That variability is already allowed (in the UK at least, but not banding) and comrs with an unexpected side effect - large brewers were advertising at higher abv values then they were brewing at, but paying duty kn the lower value [0]. taxing by abv simplifies the cslculatuons; you just measure it once. [0] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41059610 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41059610
- jabl 5y ago> That variability is already allowed (in the UK at least, but not banding) and comrs with an unexpected side effect - large brewers were advertising at higher abv values then they were brewing at, but paying duty kn the lower value [0]. You didn't expect them to forego an opportunity to shaft BOTH the consumer and the taxman at the same time, did you?