2023-07-20 15:32:36
Will alcohol taxes increase in 2024? This is at least what the Minister of Economy and Finance Bruno Le Maire announced after meeting the deputies of the majority on July 12, according to information from the Context site confirmed by Les Echos. “This track seems almost arbitrated,” admitted an elected official present at the meeting. Wine could thus undergo an increase of 0.3 cents per bottle and strong alcohols of 1 to 2 euros.
According to the economic daily, it would be a matter of indexing the excise duties levied on alcoholic beverages to the inflation of year N-1, the annual increase being currently indexed to inflation N-2 and not being able to exceed 1.75%. To do this, the government plans to follow the measures adopted for tobacco products in the 2023 Social Security finance law. The goal? That “the prices of products subject to excise duty do not change less rapidly than those of everyday consumer products”.
Hundreds of millions of euros
In accordance with the 2021 inflation rate, the duty rates for alcohol and alcoholic beverages were increased by 1.6% in 2023. “Still wines” and “fermented beverages other than wine and beer” are taxed at 3.98 euros per hectolitre and “sparkling wines” at 9.85 euros, details the customs table. This increase would bring into the state coffers a few hundred million euros, according to sources close to Bercy. Of the 4.5 to 5 billion euros in annual revenue from taxes on beverages (including sugar-sweetened beverages), the majority comes from excise duties on alcohol.
This increase announced for 2024 did not fail to make the representatives of the sector react. Some remind Emmanuel Macron in particular that he had indicated, during his first term, that he would not increase taxes on alcohol. “We have not increased our distribution prices in 2022 despite the increases in charges, in particular linked to the increase in the price of glass”, underlines Thomas Gauthier, secretary general of the French Spirits Federation (FFS), who evokes a “double penalty”. Discussions must now be held before the presentation of the finance bill at the start of the next school year.
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