Tax relief just the tonic for Cooroy distillery

A Cooroy distillery could add up to eight positions if the Federal Government agreed to a “fairer” spirits tax.

20 20 Distillery owner Brian Bedding wants a break from government charges.

Cooroy's fledgling 20 20 Distillery could expand its workforce by up to eight positions if the Federal Government agreed to a "fairer" spirits tax.

Owner Brian Bedding has joined forces with other craft distillers and spirits companies calling for urgent government action to make his product more competitive.

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He said Australia's spirits tax was the third highest in the world and almost 10 times higher than the USA rate.

"We're working hard at 20 20 Distillery to bounce back from a drop in tourism to our region due to Covid lockdowns and last year's disruptions and we're asking the government for a fair go on tax as we do that," Mr Bedding said.

"With a fairer spirits tax regime, we think we could increase production, add to tours and experiences and create the opportunity to break into export markets which would allow us to employ an additional eight staff.

20 20 Distillery’s Brian Bedding wants some urgent tax relief to lift his spirits.

"We know the benefits of a fairer tax rate would flow from farm to glass," he said.

Mr Bedding said a delegation from Australian Distillers Association and Spirits and Cocktails Australia had travelled to Canberra to call on federal MPs for a reduction in spirits tax to match brandy.

They also called for a freeze on automatic six-monthly CPI increases for three years.

The alliance is also campaigning for an increase in the excise refund limit from $100,000 to $350,000 annually, to put craft distillers on an equivalent level of support to small wine producers.

The Australian Taxation Office at present allows a 60 per cent refund on the excise duty paid on distillery products.

Mr Bedding said if taxes were halved on his excise products he could look at expanding production.

"It really just slows the growth in the business down and also slows employment down in our region," he said.

The 20 20 Distillery bar is looking for a tax break from the Federal Government.

Federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg told the ABC there were no plans to change Australia's alcohol tax settings.

Mr Frydenberg said the Federal Government was also supporting smaller producers by bringing forward the lowering of company taxes to 25 per cent by 2021-22 for companies earning less than $50 million a year.

He said after extending the excise refund scheme for distillers in 2017, the government in 2019 lifted the excise refund from $30,000 to $100,000.

Mr Bedding said craft distillers were only "just a little patch" of the big producers with less than 4 per cent of the spirits marketed nationally.

He said despite the tax challenges his business was increasing its visitor flow.

"Covid's been good in that everyone's starting to think local again," Mr Bedding said.

"Our tasting bar has only been open 11 weeks and we're slowly building.

"People drive up from Brisbane and we must have had three or four different people from Gympie over a weekend which is awesome."

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