With millions of people set to enjoy Australian-made alcohol over the holiday period, producers say consumers are having to pay unnecessarily high prices because of exorbitant tax rates.
In a bid to overcome what it says is a model that discourages quality production, industry body Wines of Western Australia is pushing for a shake-up of the tax system.
Ian 'Duke' Ranson, who owns and runs Duke's Vineyard at the Porongurup Range, almost 400km south of Perth, said small-volume, higher-value producers were disadvantaged by current arrangements."If you buy the equivalent amount of wine from a supermarket as a cheap wine, you probably pay $1 tax. Federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said there were no plans to change Australia's alcohol tax settings.
The Treasurer also singled out the distilling industry, saying the Government had extended an excise refund scheme in 2017 to provide tax relief.
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