The ‘Support Your Local…’ campaign has come out and condemned Ireland’s high level of excise duty in the wake of new figures comparing the prices of alcohol in Ireland and Germany.
A survey by Eurostat found that the total tax on a pint of beer in Ireland is €1.42 compared to €0.79 in Germany. Shockingly, Irish consumers pay €16.41 worth of tax on a bottle of spirits, more than twice what German consumers have to fork out (€7.48). The same is also true for tax on a bottle of wine: Germans pay €1.12, while Irish consumers hand over €4.50 in tax per wine bottle.
In total, Irish people pay annual tax on alcohol of €733.08, where as their German counterparts part with only €307.32.
As such, alcohol in Ireland is now the most expensive in Europe, and ‘Support your local…’s campaign manager Bart Storan has called on the government to decrease excise drastically in order to save jobs in the sector and facilitate future industry growth.
“This is an industry that employs 92,000 people in every corner of the island, buys €1.1 billion worth of Irish inputs, and offers a unique hospitality experience, renowned internationally, in the pubs of Ireland,” he said.
“Excise Duty is a tax that we can no longer afford- a tax on the hard-pressed Irish consumers. If you’re going to facilitate growth in this sector, the Government needs to reverse this tax.”
© 2014 - Checkout Magazine by Conor William O’Brien
