I started collecting statistics years ago, long before this blog kicked off. It was a lot of effort for no particular direct return. Longterm, it's a totally different matter. I'm so glad I put the work in because I have most of the numbers I need to hand. Like this set.
A couple of notes. The tax in 1930 and 1934 - 1939 wasn't really 80 shillings a barrel. It was 100/- per standard barrel with a 20/- rebate per bulk barrel. Which meant that the tax was effectively higher the stronger the beer. For example, a barrel of 1027.5º (half standard gravity) would be 50/- minus 20/- making the tax 30/-. While a beer at the standard gravity of 1055º would be 100/- minus 20/- leaving tax of 80/-. You can see that the stronger beer paid more than double the tax of the weaker beer.
The average tax per pint I've calcutated in a very simple way: by dividing the total tax collected by the number of pints brewed.
| UK beer tax and tax yield 1930 - 1939 | ||||||
| Year | Total Tax £ | Bulk Barrels | Std. Barrels | Tax/Std. Brl | Av. sg | tax pint |
| 1930 | 71,254,674 | 25,061,956 | 19,550,867 | 80s | 1042.9 | 2.37d |
| 1931 | 69,269,299 | 23,900,213 | 18,488,400 | 114s | 1042.54 | 2.42d |
| 1932 | 68,710,020 | 20,790,812 | 15,514,209 | 114s | 1041.04 | 2.75d |
| 1933 | 67,097,581 | 17,950,303 | 12,658,324 | 114s | 1039.52 | 3.11d |
| 1934 | 53,884,405 | 20,182,308 | 15,043,120 | 80s | 1040.99 | 2.22d |
| 1935 | 53,582,335 | 20,864,814 | 15,577,836 | 80s | 1041.06 | 2.14d |
| 1936 | 55,451,926 | 21,969,763 | 16,386,985 | 80s | 1041.02 | 2.10d |
| 1937 | 57,318,585 | 22,724,450 | 16,985,231 | 80s | 1041.1 | 2.10d |
| 1938 | 61,241,404 | 24,205,631 | 18,055,539 | 80s | 1041.02 | 2.11d |
| 1939 | 62,370,034 | 24,674,992 | 18,364,156 | 80s | 1040.93 | 2.11d |
| Sources: | ||||||
| 1928 Brewers' Almanack | ||||||
| 1955 Brewers' Almanack | ||||||
You can see that Sir Edgar Sanders was correct when he said that the tax on a pint of beer was 3d a pint in 1933. Though the tax yield was even lower that £74,000,000 and didn't even reach £70 million. The amount of tax collected only got back to the level of 1931 in 1940, after extra wartime taxation had been levied.
Do you have any additional context for UK beer taxes? For instance, what were other countries doing? Or maybe what were the other major sources of revenue for the British government?
ReplyDeleteI think modern bond rating companies would seriously frown on a government that put such high dependence on revenue from a single source with such potential for variability as beer.