MORE Australians may have to settle for enjoying a beer at home to avoid paying the fourth-highest beer tax in the industrialised world.
The automatic levy applied to alcoholic beverages every six months was updated on Monday of last week, increasing to $2.26 per litre.
The money paid per litre of alcohol in individual containers of less than eight litres with more than 3.5 per cent alcohol volume, for instance, will increase from $50.70 to $51.31.
The Sandbar Mildura owner Malcolm Kalms said while he had not modified beer prices yet, it was unlikely the tax increase would result in patrons drinking less.
“It happens twice a year, which means consumers end up paying more for less,” he said.
“You get tax on the beer, but (in a bar) then you get GST as well, you’re double-taxed.
“We normally handle it once a year so we’ll wait until the next price rise to change our beer prices.”
A report commissioned by the Brewers Association of Australia claimed that the tax rates stood as the fourth-highest beer tax among developed countries.
“A massive 42 per cent of the retail price on a carton of beer is tax,” Brewers Association of Australia chief executive Brett Heffernan said.
“Beer tax has been going up every six months for the last 35 years. This latest slug is the 71st consecutive hike.”
Mr Kalms said the preferred payment method of “tap and go” meant that fewer patrons were questioning beverage prices.
“Eighty per cent of sales now is tap and go so people don’t really ask about the price of things now,” he said.
“But there are older guys who come in and count their coins out … they will notice it and probably won’t like it.
“But at the end of the day people aren’t going to drink less, it’ll just encourage them to drink at home more.”
