Drinkers Don’t Burden the Taxpayer
Kill-joy research by the Institute of Alcohol Studies today claims that alcohol harm costs England £27.4 billion a year, putting a cork in one of Britain’s greatest cultures: drinking. The good news is, the freedom-loving Institute for Economic Affairs‘ Christopher Snowdon has pointed out that there’s no need to wine about it – alcohol doesn’t actually cost the taxpayer that much. The party-pooper research is not a cost-benefit analysis, merely a sobering “cost” account…
What the IAS paper fails to include is the £46 billion a year that the alcohol industry contributes to the economy, showing the glass is more than half full. Snowdon also points out the supposed “productivity” and “emotional” costs don’t burden the taxpayers’ wallets at all – though those buying a round at the Red Lion may beg to differ. The IEA’s analysis shows that alcohol misuse costs the public purse less than £5 billion a year, a bar tab easily covered by the more than £10 billion paid in alcohol duty. Snowdon got it down in one:
“Thanks to the UK’s high alcohol taxes, there is little doubt that drinkers continue to subsidise non-drinkers to the tune of billions of pounds.”
Cheers to that…
