A Tipperary Senator is calling for a reduction in the VAT rate of non-alcoholic drinks.
Currently a rate of 23 percent is applied to such drinks – despite having no alcohol in them.
Senator Garret Ahearn says this pricing doesn’t encourage people to choose the healthier, non-alcoholic option, which is particularly unfair to designated drivers and those who consciously decide to avoid alcohol for health reasons.
The Clonmel based politician says a reduction in the VAT would bring a level playing field.
“So all alcoholic drinks have a Vat rate of 23%. Non-alcoholic drinks like coffee, tea, fruit juices all are at 13.5%. in my view we should be reducing that rate of non-alcoholic drinks to 13.5% from 23 and it would encourage people to choose the non-alcoholic drink as opposed to the alcoholic counterpart.”
Senator Ahearn also feels reducing the VAT rate on non-alcoholic beers would help efforts to tackle drink driving.
“Last year unfortunately we had a very high number of road deaths and accidents on our roads and that’s continued early into this year. Some of those have been caused by alcohol unfortunately. We need to do everything we can to make sure that we have things in place that entice people to not drink and drive and if its reducing the tax on non-alcoholic drinks I think that’s something we should do.”
