Beer Tax vs. VAT

Noted at Mark Wadsworth and tipped off by SumoKing, some rather common sense about leveling the playing field for Supermarkets vs Pubs by looking at how we currently impose beer tax (on both) and VAT (on pubs only):

So if a pint of beer in a supermarket costs 80 pence, and a pint in a pub costs £2.40 (i.e. three times as much), the total tax on the pint from the supermarket is 50p but the total tax on the pint in the pub is 70p. Ask yourself...

1) What would happen if they went the whole hog and scrapped the beer tax entirely in some vague attempt to help pubs, and both supermarkets and pubs passed on the full saving to the consumer* - then the pint in the supermarket would fall to 40p and the pint in the pub would fall to £2. All of a sudden, a pint in the pub would cost five times as much as a pint from the supermarket that you drink at home. Would this help pubs? Methinks not.

2) What would happen if they went the on the other tack and scrapped VAT but increased beer tax to 55p per pint (in the interests of some sort of fiscal neutrality), and both supermarkets and pubs passed on the full tax changes to the consumer* - then the pint in the supermarket would increase to 95p and the pint in the pub would fall to £2.25. All of a sudden, a pint in the pub would only cost two-and-a-third times as much as in the supermarket. Would this help pubs? Methinks it would.

Ergo, if 'they' really want to help pubs via the tax system (rather than just scrapping the smoking ban), it's not the beer tax they should be looking at, it's the bloody VAT, The Worst Tax of All.