Malt spirits materials

1 passages · search this phrase →

Often appears with: taxation, tribute, and revenue · smuggling incentives · health and morals policy · famine, scarcity, and plenty · excise duty adjustments

Usually: argument (1) · exhortation (1)

An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations primary

Adam Smith · 1776 (composed/publication period); modern imprint not specified beyond a 1852 reprint
BOOK I. > L.2,455,500. The expense of management, amounts, in this manner, to between five and six per cent. upon the gross revenue of the customs; and to something more than ten per cent. upon what remains of that revenue, after deducting what is paid away in bounties and drawbacks. (8/12)

Smith extends the malt-tax argument to spirits, claiming higher malt duties could reduce smuggling, while beer and ale taxes could be adjusted to discourage harmful spirits without reducing their price.

metheglin. The produce of those different taxes will probably much more than counterbalance that of the duties imposed, by what is called the annual malt tax, upon cyder and mum. Malt is consumed, not only in the brewery of beer and ale, but in the manufacture of low wines and spirits. If the malt tax were to be raised to eighteen shillings upon the quarter, it might be necessary to make some abatement in the differ…