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Australian Taxation Office (ATO) has today announced that they will be ‘ramping up compliance action’ in a bid to protect the integrity of the excise tax remission scheme.

The rise of illicit alcohol production is harmful to legitimate alcohol producers, like the 600 independent, Australian owned breweries the IBA represents and enforcement is necessary. However, the rise of illegal alcohol was easily predicted as Australian beer and spirits face some of the highest taxes in the world.

A couple of weeks ago, we saw the 86th automatic tax excise increases on packaged beer, while the draught beer tax is frozen for a short time. The average Australian increasingly can’t afford to host their neighbour for a BBQ or meet at their local and shout a round after a work week, all thanks to antiquated, ineffective tax laws. It is ordinary, tax paying Australian’s who can no longer afford to support their local establishments, and that includes independent, Australian owned breweries.

What we are seeing is the failure of public policy from successive governments.

Now, the ATO is pouring millions of taxpayer dollars into the enforcement of compliance of the alcohol remission scheme – while Government refuses to even have a fulsome conversation about what has led us here.

The new compliance action from the ATO is likely to burden operators with further red tape and paperwork, another hit for small businesses already struggling with labour shortages and cost increases.

As Gareth Hutchen’s from the ABC posited a couple of weeks ago – its about time we give something else a try.

It’s got to the point where the cost of alcohol is grinding our old pub culture and live music venues into dust because it’s too expensive for people to go out for a drink regularly.

Try a thought experiment: let’s abolish the excise on beer for five years and see what happens to Australia’s pub culture and night-time economy.

Would they thrive? Would the cultural and economic benefits of such an experiment outweigh the “cost” of the government’s lost excise revenue?

“The current alcohol taxation system is serving no-one. Enforcing compliance is costing taxpayers more, illicit alcohol is a risk to public health, the automatic increases to excise means that its increasingly only Australian’s with significant disposable income that can afford to share a drink with friends while the average Aussie worker is having the basic pleasure of sharing a beer taken away.” IBA CEO Sabrina Kunz says.

“At the same time, if high taxation was really about preventing overconsumption – wine would be taxed the same as beer and spirits, and policy would nudge consumers to lower alcohol products.”

Its time for Government to #TaxGasNotBeer and lead the conversation about total alcohol tax reform rather than burying its head in the sand and hoping it all goes away.