Is This UK Alcohol Duty Rate Too High?
The level of Duty imposed on alcohol purchases is always a hot topic. Before the recent UK budget, a group of WSTA SMEs wrote to the chancellor asking for a 2% cut in order to help small British companies, like Hermitage Cognacs, invest and grow. Currently the UK has some of the highest alcohol taxes in the world. As we now know, Rishi Sunak did not cut alcohol duty but neither did he increase it by the proposed 2.2%. Something to be thankful for especially since earlier in the year, some UK health organisations were lobbying the government to put Duty up by 2 % above inflation. They argued that alcohol places an undue burden on public services so the extra funds collected could be used to boost the number of nurses or policemen. One really hopes that following the Covid-19 crisis the public will be far more aware of the effect of unnecessarily burdening our public services.