The Daily Mail acts after being fact-checked

By David Campbell

A Daily Mail Australia article falsely accusing Prime Minister Anthony Albanese of being behind a beer tax hike has been shared on social media.

"Anthony Albanese increases a major tax impacting millions of Australians," reads the headline of the Daily Mail's Facebook post.

The article goes on to discuss how Australians would soon suffer a double blow from rising energy costs and "Anthony Albanese's beer tax hike".

"Beer prices will soar to as much as $12 a schooner after the Albanese government's 3.7 per cent tax increase came into effect Wednesday, the second rise in six months."

However, as the Australian Tax Office (ATO) website explains, the alcohol excise typically increases automatically every February and August – regardless of which party is in power.

These increases are simply a reflection of inflation, or the rising cost of living.

Alcohol that is commercially produced in Australia is subject to excise duties, or taxes levied on certain commodities such as alcohol, tobacco and petroleum products.

When it comes to beer, these rates vary depending on factors such as the beer's strength or whether it is sold in kegs or bottles.

Notably, the tax applies to the volume of a drink's alcoholic content (ABV) above 1.15 per cent, as opposed to the drink's total volume.

In January 2023, the ATO announced that from February 1 the excise duty rates on commercially produced alcohol would increase by 3.7 per cent.

The change meant that the tax component of a (570 mL) pint with 5 per cent alcohol content would rise by a little over three cents.

Rates had previously increased in August 2022 by 4 per cent. 

Although the Daily Mail article blames Anthony Albanese for the tax rise, a paragraph buried in the same article states: “the latest beer tax hike is linked to inflation”.

The article also quotes a spokesperson for the Treasurer Jim Chalmers as saying: “This is the usual, automatic indexation change that happens twice a year under governments of both persuasions and it's not a new decision of this government.” 

At the time of the August 2022 tax increase, the CEO of the Brewers Association industry group, John Preston, published a statement that said such increases were "a problem that the new Treasurer has inherited from his predecessors".

Alcohol excise rates are set according to the Excise Tariff Act 1921, which has been updated over the years and lays out the current indexation rules.

The ATO website explains: "The law indexes the excise duty rates for alcohol twice a year, based on the upward movement of the consumer price index (CPI). 

"The Australian Bureau of Statistics … is responsible for determining and publishing the CPI which provides the basis for indexation."

Under section 6A of the Excise Tariff Act, excise rates do not change – in either direction – when inflation is negative.

These rules were added in 1983 by the Hawke government.

Since then, beer excise rates have been changed on a handful of occasions outside of regular indexation, for example, after the introduction of the GST.

The most recent amendment to the Act occurred before the current government was elected, when the Coalition temporarily reduced the excise on fuel in March 2022.

In their brief history of Australia's tax system, Treasury officials explain that alcohol taxes have existed in Australia since colonial times, with excise duties applied to locally produced goods from "early in the 19th century." 

Specific laws for beer duties were passed in Tasmania and Victoria in 1880 and in other colonies prior to federation. In 1901, standardised alcohol excise rates were introduced across the country. 

The Daily Mail article comes hard on the heels of a Facebook post published days earlier by the opposition's Shadow Minister for Community Safety, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs, Jason Wood, who misleadingly claimed that beer drinkers were "the newest victims of Labor's sneaky taxes".

Mr Wood falsely characterised these increases as "new taxes" and tantamount to "another broken promise" by the Labor government, which went to the election promising no new taxes for everyday Australians.