UK Government duty revenues fall

The UK Government is seeing revenue duties fall after big rises.

Desperate for cash, they put the duty on wine up by 20% last year. It now looks like this has resulted in £600m less revenue between September and January 2023/24 than the previous year's quarter.

In August 2023 the UK government introduced a new system of duty so that higher alcohol drinks paid more duty than lower alcohol drinks. In doing this they increased duty by 20% on over 85% of all wines in the UK, the largest increase in 40 years.

The massive increase in tax not only drove up inflation, it looks like it has also damaged total tax revenue. The HMRC now says that the change has cost £600m in duty for beer, wines, spirits and cider (£436m for wines and spirits alone).