The Alcohol tax gap includes excise and customs duties payable for beer, spirits, and other excisable beverages. It doesn't include wine, which we estimate separately. Find out more about the Wine equalisation tax gap or the Excise on alcohol.
When estimating the Alcohol tax gap, we look at all entities required to pay alcohol. This includes entities that either:
- manufacture or store excisable alcohol products which are delivered into the Australian domestic market for home consumption (domestic population)
- import excise equivalent goods into Australia (importing population).
The domestic population is identified through excise returns and claims, while the importing population is identified through customs data.
We also examine entities who operate unlicensed or under-report what they deliver into the Australian market. It is these entities that create most of the gap.
Like all excise gaps, when excise rates increase, the value of the gap in dollar terms will increase even if overall levels of compliance remain the same. It is for this reason that we focus on the tax gap percentage when considering the change in the gap between years.
This gap forms a part of our overall tax performance program. Find out more about the Principles and approaches to measuring gaps.