Whisky in a GERS

Now you won’t read about any elected Politician on any side say that the GERS figures are flawed - they would look ridiculous if they did. The SNP even used (well cherry picked the more favourable time horizons) to use in their white paper before the 2014 Scottish independence referendum.

Now the mantra independence supporters use can be found on the “wings over Scotland” mid-information webpage 

It’s says “There are other ways in which Scottish revenues are invisible in the official statistics. Much of the alcohol duty paid by our whisky industry is not counted as revenue from Scotland. Alcohol produced in the UK which is exported abroad becomes subject to UK alcohol duty at the point of export, and a large proportion of Scotland’s multibillion whisky exports gets shipped out from ports in England. The UK Treasury counts the duty levied on this whisky as income from the tax region in which the port is situated”

Now this is unequivocally bullshit which was shamelessly seeded by the SNP's influential social media taskforce and still being said to this day on any Indy debates.

Let’s put this nonsense to bed once and for all ....

Firstly there’s no such thing as export duty for Scottish whisky ....you can get this easy enough from the Freedom of information act ... FOI Reference: FoI/15/00982 which says....

 The requester asked.....

“What is the value and percentage of revenues collected from 'whisky export 

duty' allocated to Scotland & UK in the last 5 Years of GERS?”

The answer given is “Exports, including exports of whisky, do not attract duty in the UK.  

Therefore, no ‘whisky export duty’ revenue is reported for either Scotland 

or the UK in GERS.”

You can also just google it people .... you can see it on the official Scottish Government GERS webpage 

This has also been confirmed by the Scotch Whisky Association, but this myth still goes on .... since then even the Scottish Government posted the following “response to GERS query” relating to whisky Export duty:

“Exports, including exports of whisky do not attract a UK duty therefor no “whisky export duty “ revenue is allocated to Scotland in GERS”

 Another quote from the whisky industry is 

"No alcohol duty is levied on Scotch Whisky exported from the UK to the EU or third countries, whether from Scottish ports or from ports elsewhere in the UK. UK alcohol duty (excise duty) is only levied on Scotch Whisky when released from bond for consumption in the UK. Under EU law, the rate of excise duty has to be consistent across the territory of a member state. If Scotland were an independent country, the rate of excise duty on Scotch Whisky would be set by a Scottish Government within the parameters for excise duty on alcoholic drinks set by the European Union. The excise duty revenue accruing to a Scottish exchequer would only be the amount raised on the release from bond of Scotch Whisky for consumption in Scotland."

Also in the 2008 GERS report produced by the Scottish Government...

"In GERS, VAT and excise duty estimates for Scotland are based on the consumption approach.

This is appropriate as the burden of the duty is borne by the final consumer rather than the producer. This is considered best practice as within a system of regional fiscal accounts, the VAT liability 'sticks' when the item is purchased by the final consumer. The location of production is of no relevance.

Tobacco and alcohol duties are only collected if the product is consumed in the UK. If the product is exported, the producer receives export relief. For example, while duty is levied on Scotch Whisky when it leaves a bonded warehouse, in reality it is only collected if the whisky is consumed in the UK. Consequently, the ultimate payer of the duty is the UK consumer of the product.

Therefore, GERS estimates duty collected from Scotch Whisky based upon the level of whisky consumption in Scotland, even though Scotch Whisky is only produced in Scotland. Similarly, the estimate of tobacco duty collected in Scotland is based upon the level of consumption of tobacco products in Scotland, even though most tobacco goods are produced outside Scotland."

So any talk about missing Scottish revenues because of excise duties levied at English ports is just wrong and some research will prove this point once and for all!