ThePortForum.com

Let's try and get the duty escalator scrapped. Horrifying statistics at the Call Time On Duty website. Why not send your MP a letter and see if he'll ask George Osborne to give us all a break.

57 % vat on wine????????
Here in Germany we pay 19%, which is the normal vat rate for almost everything.
I hope all wine-lovers will unite to put so much pressure on the government that this crazy scheme is scraped.

AW77 wrote:57 % vat on wine????????
Here in Germany we pay 19%, which is the normal vat rate for almost everything.
I hope all wine-lovers will unite to put so much pressure on the government that this crazy scheme is scraped.

It's not 57% VAT. VAT is 20% on all goods, but the excise duty on wine and spirits is set to rise automatically by 2% above inflation every year at the moment (a 'duty escalator'). This means that, when you work out the total cost of a price of wine or spirits, that amount is going to the Treasury in some form of tax or other. Quite ridiculous, as you say.

AW77 wrote:57 % vat on wine????????

It is not quite that bad

In the UK we pay a fixed amount of Duty on wine (currently £2 per bottle) plus VAT (@ 20%) on the cost + Duty. The 57% represents the combined effect of duty and VAT on a cheap bottle of wine. The higher the price of the wine the lower the impact of the duty becomes.

The solution is to only drink expensive wine


My MP now has an email

Well I think that was a half victory.

Yes could have been worse.

DRT wrote:

AW77 wrote:57 % vat on wine????????

The solution is to only drink expensive wine

Does this mean that you will be leaving any future offers like the Croft 2004 unfilterd lbv in Tesco's on the shelf to avoid paying a higher % of tax? All the more left for the rest of us!

The UK Government, in the Budget 2014 briefing document [url=https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/293872/TIIN_8000_alcohol_duty_rates.pdf]Alcohol Duty Rates[/url] wrote:duty on wine and made-wine exceeding 15 per cent but not exceeding 22 per cent abv: £364.37 per hectolitre of product;

This means that duty on a case (12 bottles = 9 litres) of port will rise from £32 to £32.80; duty on a bottle will rise from approx. £2.67 (depending on rounding) to £2.74.

Can a mathematician with time on his hands (is there any other sort?) tell me how much more it would have been had the escalator been retained?

Another freeze on wine duty has been announced in this year's Budget: am I correct in thinking this applies to fortified wines too?