Following the news that government is trying to stop the frightful oiks drinking those ghastly drinks they do by bringing in minimum alcohol pricing I was quite surprised to see that some tosser was actually claiming that we have a very low rate of tax on alcohol.
Being a dedicated beer nerd I happen to have to hand some facts from Charlie Bamforth's latest book that says otherwise:
Tax rates on beer in Europe, April 2009 (pence per pint):
Finland: 61.74
Ireland: 51.99
UK: 45.89
Sweden: 43.15
Denmark: 19.42
Slovenia: 17.95
Netherlands: 17.08
Italy: 14.76
Estonia: 12.88
Austria: 12.56
Cyprus: 12.51
Hungary: 11.12
Belgium: 10.74
Slovakia: 10.36
Poland: 9.46
Greece: 8.54
France: 6.91
Lithuania: 6.44
Spain: 5.71
Czech: 5.55
Latvia: 5.35
Luxembourg: 4.98
Germany: 4.94
Bulgaria: 4.82
Malta: 4.71
Romania: 4.15
And the BBPA came up with the startling figure that the UK, even though it has only 12% of the population, and isn't the biggest beer-drinking country, pays 40% of all the beer duty in the EU.
ReplyDeleteMakes me feel justified about moving to Germany. :)
ReplyDeleteStrewth, we pay more in beer duty than Sweden!!
ReplyDelete