beer tax increase
How can they even consider doing something like this??
That is damn ridiculous, but you know this isn't the first or last sin tax to hike during this economic downturn.
Not to come to the defense of increased taxation, especially on something as essential to life as
beer . . . but I can't help but noticing that the microbrew guy was having a bit of trouble with math, there.
The new tax would raise $140M for state coffers but cost consumers $315M? How, exactly? Tax is tax. What he's saying is they'd add the tax to the
wholesale price and then double up from there . . . which is a bit like shooting yourself in the foot because your elbow pissed you off.
And then goes on to claim that a $49 per barrel tax would add $1.50 to the price of a
glass. Again, while I'm not sure how big a barrel is, exactly, if barrel = keg that means he's figuring on a mere 32 glasses of beer per keg. My own memory always gets a bit fuzzy by the end of a keg party, but I'm thinking we usually get more than that at MY house.
Loading on "sin taxes" in a declining market is a sucker's bet to begin with, but bad math and histrionics don't make the case against them more credible.
~Boar