Alcohol taxes - One of the great certainties of life
Commercial Spirits Intelligence No.58
As people who have worked in and around the spirits industry for many years, we found that there was a lack of good, public, research on the trends in the spirits industry. Whether it’s trends in wood, or distillery capacity, or M&A activity - many of the existing research providers speak to a specific niche when we wanted a whole-market analysis. In this newsletter we leverage our experience, contacts and market intel to provide meaningful analysis that speaks to relevant issues for you. This newsletter is a collaboration between Duncan McFadzean of Noble & Co, and Martin Purvis. If you find this newsletter valuable, please consider a paid subscription.
Alcohol Taxation – One of the great certainties of life
Executive Summary
The two certainties in life are death and taxes, as the famous saying goes. Following on from our recent look at alcohol deaths, this time we dig into taxes. This is a top of lots of discussion around the world currently – partly as a function of new governments but mostly, in our view, as a result of tougher markets and price/volume pressure meaning producers and industry associations are looking for help wherever they can get it. From the US to Australia to the UK, campaigns are being run setting out the need to reduce excise duties.
We decided to dig into the facts and look at taxes around the world. This is incredibly challenging, as some duties are against volume of alcohol in a drink, others against grams of alcohol and others even more arbitrary.
In this week’s newsletter we look at what tax levels are, what the most significant countries tax and what this means for the elasticity of drinks pricing. Read on for the substance behind the noise.