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The issue is that vice taxes tend to be highly regressive. Spirit duty in the UK is £28.74 per litre of pure alcohol. A ~£20 bottle of Jack Daniels pays a tiny

by pdpi 5y ago

The issue is that vice taxes tend to be highly regressive. Spirit duty in the UK is £28.74 per litre of pure alcohol. A ~£20 bottle of Jack Daniels pays a tiny bit over £8 of spirit duty, which is 40% of the sale price. A £250 bottle of 25 year old single cask Glenlivet pays a tiny bit under £8 of spirit duty, around 3% of the sale price. I don't think it's entirely reasonable that the vice tax is a rounding error for fancy drinks, but amount to almost half the price you pay for cheaper booze.

EForEndeavour 5y ago
Maybe the answer to flawed vice taxes is to address those flaws rather than to advocate for an outright ban.
Ekaros 5y ago
Seems obvious that it should be percentage with minimum amount. Would treat both sides fairly.
dzhiurgis 5y ago
There are probably 100x more buyers of cheap alco than something that you mentioned
tomrod 5y ago
> The issue is that vice taxes tend to be highly regressive. For a cross-sectional view this is certainly true. At a single point in time, a high tax rate impacts people who are more economically vulnerable more than those that are wealthier. However, does the causality hold if we consider this over time? Addictive substances use -> economically impoverished, or economically impoverished -> addictive substances use? To me it seems many folks use addictive substances to self medicate in absence (or in spite of) a universal healthcare system. And then when economically improving opportunities come may have less capacity to claim them. Do we look at it this way? Does it matter? General open questions.
chrismcb 5y ago
This is the problem I have with the sugar tax. It is typically per ounce. Normally the more sugar something has, the more expensive it is. The more expensive it is, the less the sugar tax effects the price. A bottle of coke goes up like 25 cents, but a gallon of ice tea had is outside doubled.

by pdpi 5y ago

EForEndeavour 5y ago

Maybe the answer to flawed vice taxes is to address those flaws rather than to advocate for an outright ban.

Ekaros 5y ago

Seems obvious that it should be percentage with minimum amount. Would treat both sides fairly.

dzhiurgis 5y ago

There are probably 100x more buyers of cheap alco than something that you mentioned

tomrod 5y ago

> The issue is that vice taxes tend to be highly regressive. For a cross-sectional view this is certainly true. At a single point in time, a high tax rate impacts people who are more economically vulnerable more than those that are wealthier. However, does the causality hold if we consider this over time? Addictive substances use -> economically impoverished, or economically impoverished -> addictive substances use? To me it seems many folks use addictive substances to self medicate in absence (or in spite of) a universal healthcare system. And then when economically improving opportunities come may have less capacity to claim them. Do we look at it this way? Does it matter? General open questions.

chrismcb 5y ago

This is the problem I have with the sugar tax. It is typically per ounce. Normally the more sugar something has, the more expensive it is. The more expensive it is, the less the sugar tax effects the price. A bottle of coke goes up like 25 cents, but a gallon of ice tea had is outside doubled.