News

On 12 June 2024, the Australian Tax Office began consultation on a draft excise determination called “Alcohol excise: the addition of water to beer”.

Together, with other key stakeholders the Independent Brewers Association were given until 12 July 2024 to provide a response – while the proposed effective date was 1 July 2024.

If that sounds confusing, its because it is. Essentially the ATO were seeking to change the existing operating rules under everyone’s feet. After substantial push back from the IBA and other stakeholders – on 10 July 2024 the ATO advised that they “will not apply compliance resources to the classification of beverages impacted by the determinations until after 31 December 2024”. So we can chalk that up to a win!

Why should you care?

We encourage you to take a read of the draft determination but in essence if you use high gravity brewing techniques or you make a seltzer or a ginger beer this determination could impact your business.

What did we say?

We are proud of the innovative approaches that our independent breweries take to be competitive in this challenging market environment. Our members skate right up to the rules to experiment with products and be effective.

We accept that the ATO is essentially seeking to close what it sees as a ‘loophole’ however we do not want traditional brewing techniques to be impacted.

We have argued strongly that the implementation date should be 1 July 2025, to give any impacted breweries the time to adjust their processes and their business plans for this financial year.

Submissions close on 12 July 2024.