Britons brace for increase in ‘sin taxes’

Britons brace for increase in ‘sin taxes’

LONDON (AP) — Many Britons were resigning themselves to more puritanical lifestyles Thursday as they faced the prospect of “sin taxes” that will increase the cost of alcohol, cigarettes, gas-guzzling cars and, potentially, plastic bags.

“Don’t Drink or Drive” trumpeted the Sun newspaper after Treasury chief Alistair Darling unveiled the measures Wednesday in the government’s annual spending plan.

The Labour Party government is hoping that raising taxes on booze will help curb Britain’s binge-drinking culture.

But breakfast talk radio was abuzz with callers lamenting the potential death of Britain’s pub scene, with the tax increase coming less than a year after the government imposed a smoking ban in all public buildings.

“They put more on alcohol because they think there’s going to be binge-drinking, but it won’t stop. It just stops people going in pubs,” said Sarah Thomas, 33, a teacher trainer smoking a rolled tobacco cigarette outside The Goose pub in central London.

From this weekend, alcohol duties will rise by 6 percent above inflation — meaning an extra 8 cents for a pint of beer, which already costs about $6 in an average London pub.

They will go up around 26 cents for a bottle of wine and a whopping $1.10 a bottle for spirits such as whiskey.

The duties will then rise by an additional 2 percent above inflation in each of the next four years, reversing a trend in previous budgets to keep increases low for most alcohol products. Duties on spirits were frozen for the past 10 years to boost British spirit makers’ competitiveness, accounting for the large jump this year.

A packet of cigarettes, already a steep $11.20, will rise by 22 cents.

The first budget under Prime Minister Gordon Brown also planned to reward ecologically minded voters by imposing higher taxes on heavier polluting cars from 2010.

The increases — to be charged at the point of sale and in higher road taxes — mean that many family cars, along with gas-guzzling vehicles and sports cars, will come with larger price tags and be more expensive to drive.

George Osborne, the opposition Conservative Party spokesman said the plans would unfairly target hardworking families who need large vehicles such as SUVs.