As it was in 2010...
...and 2009...
...and 2008...
I am estimating that if the duty escalator continues for the next decade, in 2021, if chairman Jeremy Beadles statement that jobs are at risk is to be believed, we will have no jobs in the UK wine industry. Or, to put it another way, this scaremongering is cobblers.
It is annoying when duty goes up for many people throughout the supply chain. We all have to adjust pricing, recalculate profit margins, reprint wine lists, spend man hours re-stickering every bottle in our wine shops, but the net result to 'the consumer' is nothing. They still buy their wine, they still enjoy it and they still come back for more. If a 'duty adjusted price' of their favourite wine is too much for someone who doesn't want to break the £5 price point, they will simply buy another wine that costs a fiver. You, dear reader, know as well as I do that a majority of wine drinkers couldn't tell the difference between one Australian Chardonnay and another, so the quality decline that the average Joe will experience is barely noticeable to them, and those who would notice and care will tend to stick with the product they know and accept the 20p increase. You could claim that it is the customer who is suffering, but that is the point of a consumer tax - it always has been and it always will be the customer who ends up paying more. It is how things like the NHS, the Armed Forces and Jacqui Smith's husbands porn bills are paid for.
And year on year, despite the duty rises, Miller still brew beer, Glenfarclas still make whisky, Penfolds still make wine and retailers, large and small, still sell the stuff. Nobody goes bankrupt because of a tax being levied as it is levied to everyone. Companies go bust because of many number of reasons, and tax is only one of them if they don't pay it and then get a massive tax bill they can't afford. And even then, that isn't the government's fault, it is because the management of that company don't do their job properly and manage their cash flow well.
Raising duty is a pain in the backside - no question about that, and it is infuriating if you have to pay more for a product you want to buy. It is simply a cash gathering exercise by any government, but these claims by the Mr Beadles are false. The budget rise won't cause people to lose their jobs or their companies to go bust, it will just mean people pay slightly more.
At least the excuse of "it is for the health of the nation" that was used by Brown and Darling has been abandoned for the honesty of "we need more cash".
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