Pubgoers tells when the price of a pint of beer will soar to $15
Australians are facing huge increases in the cost of a pint, with the country’s beer tax registering its biggest increase in more than 30 years.
Starting Monday August 1, beer taxes are up 4 percent, adding about 80-84 cents to the price of a pint of the much-loved yellow liquid. This means you may soon be paying $15 for your favorite glass.
And there is no escape for those who buy their beer cheaply. The beer tax will increase from $53.59 to $55.73 per liter of alcohol content, raising the tax on cartons by about 80c, to $18.80.
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The tax on the vat would jump by about $4, raising the cost to almost $74.
Because of these price increases, Brewers Association of Australia chief executive John Preston warned that customers may now have to pay $15 for a pint at their local pub or bar.
“For a small pub, club or other venue, the latest tax increase would mean an increase of more than $2700 per year in their tax bill – at a time when they are still struggling to cope with the impact of the ongoing pandemic,” he said. .
The biannual alcohol tax is based on the consumer price index (CPI), which is a measure of the average change over time in the price that households pay for a fixed number of goods and services.
According to the ABS, June’s CPI increased 6.1 percent over the past 12 months, with goods accounting for 79 percent of the quarter’s gains.
Royal Albert Hotel tax collector in Sydney’s Surry Hills, Michael Bain, said that while the increase was definitely high, the beer tax increases twice a year every year (in February and August), which means the problem is not new.
“These rising prices … continue to affect us all the time,” he said.
“Because of COVID, I think a lot of people don’t charge excise… so I think this affects us more this time.
“Especially some of the craft brewers that we use, they have absorbed the CPI increase. But even the little guys now have to pass it on, so that means an overall price hike for us.”
Preston said the industry had seen “nearly 20 Australian beer tax hikes over the last decade alone”.
“Australians are taxed on beer more than almost any other country,” he said.
If a customer is forced to pay $15 for a pint of beer, Bain says he believes people will buy it anyway, but maybe buy less beer.
“Instead of buying three beers, they will buy two. I think they’re actually going to buy one less,” he said.
According to Preston, breweries and pub and club operators were “deeply disappointed” when the previous government did not provide the proposed beer tax reduction in this year’s budget, and that the new Treasurer, Jim Chalmers, had now “inherited” the Liberal problem. .
“We believe there are strong reasons for the beer tax breaks that the new federal government will provide, with the hidden beer tax set to rise again in February 2023,” he said.
Bain agreed, saying another possible solution was to cut taxes from twice a year to once a year.
“I’m not saying they shouldn’t do it and we need to pay taxes on health care and all that stuff, but at what point do you keep prying everyone out?
“You can’t keep adding increments all the time with this huge rate
“(It’s) a bit like you literally crush people with taxes.”
Chalmers was contacted for comment.
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