h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Would you be excited by a buy 300 get one free offer down at the supermarket? (This is a question. I'm asking it). I'm guessing that you wouldn't.

I'm a bit fed up with the Chancellor of the Exchequer who, at a time when the country needs all the income that it can get, thinks that voters will be won over by slashing the price of a pint by a penny. And other tinkering too.

A country is a pretty expensive organisation to run. Sometimes spending money on services is The Right Thing To Do.

A penny off a pint (for instance) really wont make any sort of impact on anyone. I'm expecting to be able to buy my extra pint sometime in November 2016. Would you object to paying an extra penny for a pint (or whatever)?

PP.

I don't expect free beer.

I'm all for heavily taxing vices - drink, smoking, gambling, luxuries, etc. It helps pay for the health and social services the users will eventually require.

Was the penny off duty (a tax taken before wholesale and retail and VAT) or VAT (a tax taken after all costs and staff are paid)?

If the former that penny will be multiplied by margin costs at every link in the supply chain - at a guess it probably adds 10p or more to the price of a pint. If it is off VAT then it would actually be just cost reduction of a penny.

Maybe the Chancellor's point to the country was that pre-wholesale taxes raise very little for the government but cost everyone between the producer and the end-customer progressively more. With VAT every penny collected is paid once by the end customer and every penny goes straight into the treasury.

So why doesn't he create a 25% VAT rate for vices and abolish duty? Probably because nobody is exempt from duty but my guess is that quite a few organisations are exempt from VAT.

Because members of the ruling elite invest heavily in businesses which rely on vices for profit.

"I'm all for heavily taxing vices - drink, smoking, gambling, luxuries, etc." [Icy North]

As a means of discouraging people from overindulging in them, or as a way to enhance government revenues?

What a pity, then, that many addictive substances trade on the black market or under the counter, thus raising nothing for social services that many addicts require disproportionately .

And as for the subject line, I'm afraid that making you buy three hundred beers in order to get one free *encourages* people to buy more in order to get he freebie -- dubiously assuming that many will take the deal .

I'm pretty certain that if the end result was 10p off a pint, Mr Osbourne would have been announcing 10p off a pint.

PP.

The big brewers all put up their prices to publicans a couple of weeks ago, by about 3% by the look of it, Ooh what a surprise just before the budget and double inflation.
And since most pubs I go in seem to price in 5p or mainly 10p steps, 1p off the the budget is going to do diddly.

If you don't like tax rates here, move to Mali where you can choose to pay more

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-31907670

It occurs to me that the change in duty will probably benefit sellers more than buyers. That means it could considerably ease the pressure that everyone seems to agree local pubs are under. CAMRA probably still haven't sat down from the standing ovation they will have given this move.

There ought to be extra duty imposed on bottled ale and sprit sold in supermarkets unless part of the weekly shop £40 excluding the drinks minimum spend. Exemption pensioners sprits and beer with a smaller shop.


Then give a reduction in duty on drinks sold in the glass in pubs and botted sprits in pubs to take out prior to closing time.

Then a heavy extra duty on drinks sold in clubs and night clubs.

This may stem the fall from favour of the local and stem antisocial late night drinking.