TERRAZZANO: Trudeau bingeing on alcohol tax hikes in 2023

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With sky-high inflation, climbing rates of interest and carbon tax hikes, you could possibly be forgiven for consuming. However Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is rubbing margarita salt within the wound by utilizing excessive inflation to binge on increased alcohol taxes.

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In 2023, the Trudeau authorities is rising the taxes you pay each time you purchase a bottle of wine, a case of beer or a mickey of rum by 6.3%.

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However even a 6.3%-tax hike downplays the full tax burden you pay each time you go to the liquor retailer. Taxes already account for about half of the value of beer, 65% of the value of wine and greater than three-quarters of the value of spirits.

You might spend about $125 in case you choose up two bottles of wine, a 24-pack of beer and a 26-ounce bottle of whisky. You’re paying greater than $76 of that tab simply in taxes.

Actually, Canadians pay a lot tax that choosing up a case of beer on the way in which to the New 12 months’s Eve occasion in Prince Edward Island would value you extra in taxes than the full retail worth of a case of beer in 25 American states.

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Whereas Canadians are paying increased taxes, Individuals are having fun with tax cuts. From 2017 to 2019, federal beer taxes went up $34 million for giant brewers in Canada whereas happening $31 million south of the border.

The feds have been bingeing on alcohol tax hikes for the reason that 2017 finances. That yr, the Trudeau authorities launched an automated tax hike escalator. Meaning the federal excise tax routinely will increase with inflation yearly on Apr. 1. With inflation having reached a virtually 40-year excessive, Canadians are dealing with a sky-high tax hike of 6.3% in 2023.

When the escalator tax was first launched in 2017 there wasn’t a lot of a fuss as a result of inflation was decrease. However even small tax hikes can develop into massive payments over time. After the 2023 tax hike, the federal authorities’s alcohol excise taxes may have elevated 18.4% due to the automated annual tax hike that was first imposed in 2017.

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That’s what’s so pernicious about Trudeau’s alcohol escalator tax. At first you don’t actually discover it, however yearly the tax burden goes up just a bit bit. And in lower than a decade, the tax hike is already greater than 18%.

Jean-Baptiste Colbert was France’s finance minister within the seventeenth century. Colbert said the job of the tax man is “plucking the goose as to acquire the biggest doable quantity of feathers with the smallest doable quantity of hissing.” You’re the goose. And politicians are utilizing the alcohol escalator tax hoping you don’t discover all of the plucking and his again.

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Trudeau’s alcohol escalator tax is basically undemocratic. If politicians suppose Canadians aren’t paying sufficient tax, then they need to have the backbone to no less than vote on the tax hike. However your member of Parliament doesn’t vote on this tax hike. By means of the escalator tax, the Trudeau authorities makes use of inflation to covertly enhance its tax take yearly on Apr. 1.

There’s one factor that may cease the Trudeau authorities from utilizing the undemocratic alcohol escalator tax to take more cash from you: individuals noticing. The feds have binged sufficient on alcohol taxes. It’s time for Canadians to inform the federal government that it’s lower off.

— Franco Terrazzano is the Federal Director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.