Whats involved in making the hobby legal in AU?

[atec77]

https://wvmetronews.com/2022/01/24/hous ... rxwlp6RYiI
any guidelines from New Zealand /

[The Stig]

Forget about it :-B

[LikkerSheWillLoveIt]

The government loves the fun tax too much in this country.

In fact I read this article 10 minutes before I read this post.

https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/food/ ... a6d9833232

[atec77]

The government loves the fun tax too much in this country.

In fact I read this article 10 minutes before I read this post.

https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/food/ ... a6d9833232

Same idea behind taxing fuel and gst on fuel and anything else . obviously not confined to one party so the pollie-govco seem mainline addicted to tax instead of services and reducing thee huge wastage in the uncivil service
However how did NZ get it done... Anyone?


I see often business owners and those who have a dollar being lambasted and taxed heavily due to their success... no wonder tax accountants become millionaires

[atec77]

Forget about it :-B

Nah :teasing-tease:

[The Stig]

Make too much noise about it and they may take an interest in what’s going on in shed and kitchens and desire it’s time to crack the whip and stamp us out

[Jedstar]

Not sure I buy into all the clandestine paranoia, the way I figure it if I had just bought liquor at the store over the past two years I would have put in about 1% of tax I have generated SAVING money LOL by making my own grog, in the last two years buying a number of stills as my interest evolved and culminating into modifying a shed into a purpose designed distilling space, converting my house to 3 phase power, plumbing a shed, lining it, extending it and air conditioning to mention only a few things, I have injected a ridiculous amount of money into the economy and thereby GST.

ATO could track down every still purchase in a heart beat if they wanted to, but why would they?

The ATO is connected to our banks & the banks of every HBS in the country & there nothing secret in the e-economy, the revenue and GST all the HBS & still suppliers generate alone in addition to all their clients and the spin offs in an industry that the ATO knows it would be counter productive to tax revenue to close down, otherwise they would move without hesitation & would have done so decades ago.

Short of advertising overtly and selling shine out in the open, the illegal aspect is health related, because there is always going to be some red neck dip ship that wants to drink 94% ethanol and die in the process, so making it illegal covers the governments arse against attempts for compensation.

The only examples I can find of police charging offenders with illegal distilling of alcohol is when they move on criminals for other offenses and find a still and so throw the charge in addition to the rest of the charges as a part of tossing the book at them.

My wife and I keep laughing about all the savings we seen since me getting into this hobby (oh like the power bill since you started stilling, yeah savings all round.) and of all the reasons anyone may get involved, if saving money is on your list, you may want to choose another hobby, but then show me any hobby that saves you money. In short moonshiners are good for the economy and that good for the ATO and that is why they turn a blind eye. That's my opinion anyway and everyone is welcome to it. Cheers

[atec77]

Make too much noise about it and they may take an interest in what’s going on in shed and kitchens and desire it’s time to crack the whip and stamp us out

MMM hunting down thousands of tiny possible violators or rip a large company for millions , even increase tax cause they can
some worry might be justified maybe

[bluc]

People get busted tried and fined for 1gram weed $30... Think about that for a minute..

[Jedstar]

weed is still not main stream accepted, alcohol is, weed is not available legally for recreational purposes, alcohol is. Its not a realist comparison for mine.

[LikkerSheWillLoveIt]

People get busted tried and fined for 1gram weed $30... Think about that for a minute..

You’re getting ripped off

[bluc]

not anymore because I don't smoke anymore :laughing-rolling:

[bluc]

weed is still not main stream accepted, alcohol is, weed is not available legally for recreational purposes, alcohol is. Its not a realist comparison for mine.

In some places it is. In some places alcohol is illegal in Aus.... :handgestures-thumbdown:

[atec77]

weed is still not main stream accepted, alcohol is, weed is not available legally for recreational purposes, alcohol is. Its not a realist comparison for mine.

In some places it is. In some places alcohol is illegal in Aus.... :handgestures-thumbdown:

Very true but the basis on which it is enforced makes me wonder at how retrograde Oztralia is socially, kinda ie that dole card ' to ''protect'" people by robbing them of rights emasculating them in them process , some of the best copper work I ever saw was in the NT on a banned site .All it takes is fermentable sugars and a freezer for the determined.
I am not for open slather but a personal of a couple of hundred litres for you and family should be doable so again what and how it happened in NZ/?/
right now the excise is about to go close to $39.00 a litre of alcohol adding 18$+ to a bottle of commercial spirits
I recently bought some kegs and had zero trouble selling the excess off and should have bought more , not all of the buyers are beer drinkers
a shame the older 18 gal kegs are getting scarce

[bluc]

I can see it heading in same direction as tabacco pricing everyone out of it. Not getting more lenient.
And I agree it sucks. Dam nanny state..

[atec77]

I can see it heading in same direction as tabacco pricing everyone out of it. Not getting more lenient.
And I agree it sucks. Dam nanny state..

I fear you are correct , reliance of the karens and others on the nanny means with a trillion plus in debt the country has to recover the 40k odd we all owe somehow but in saying that the cost of inflated fuel and other over taxed supplies feeds into housing and food directly
I don't have answers for that but can see little pleasures like my hobbies is being affected mostly due to miss-informed over regulation , the black market in tobacco is huge much to my surprise , last time i had a smoke was $1.00 for tub of Dr Pats ready rubbed licorice and papers
Over tax causes drop in use or finding another way
i guess some reading is in order so we can find way to decriminalise a little healthy production for personal use
does that sound familiar (sic)

;-)

[atec77]

https://westernpeople.ie/2022/02/05/the ... cdX1_P88U4
appears to be legal in Ireland ?
finally

;-)

[Clickeral]

To be very frank

Most ingredients and equipment can be explained off as for beer brewing which is legal

Unless they catch you mid run your probably ok

Main rule of don't sell and be careful who you tell apply

I am making some product commercially now so I am less stressed these days.

Aging product nothing to say you didn't purchase it from someone as un-aged spirit etc

Given the new tax rules around excise under circa 300k not being required unless your making about 14000 bottles a year (700ml 40%) or people are getting harmed I wouldn't stress too much unless your doing other illegal activities.

As long as its personal consumption and your not getting money for it

The time and resources required to prosecute are probably a lot more cost then any penalty unless they need to send a message.

Pretty sure the penalties are if caught something like the excise value multiplied is payable and believe there is possible jail time but I haven't read the rules in awhile.

Excise is about $83 per L at 100% off the top of my head (don't quote me on that)

If your selling illegally then that's where the trouble comes in, just be sensible.

Its not illegal to own equipment just when its put together

Also there has been a big uptake on steam condensers for indoor beer brewing lately, so unless someone knows what they are looking at.

[atec77]

To be very frank

Most ingredients and equipment can be explained off as for beer brewing which is legal

Unless they catch you mid run your probably ok

Main rule of don't sell and be careful who you tell apply

I am making some product commercially now so I am less stressed these days.

Aging product nothing to say you didn't purchase it from someone as un-aged spirit etc

Given the new tax rules around excise under circa 300k not being required unless your making about 14000 bottles a year (700ml 40%) or people are getting harmed I wouldn't stress too much unless your doing other illegal activities.

As long as its personal consumption and your not getting money for it

The time and resources required to prosecute are probably a lot more cost then any penalty unless they need to send a message.

Pretty sure the penalties are if caught something like the excise value multiplied is payable and believe there is possible jail time but I haven't read the rules in awhile.

Excise is about $83 per L at 100% off the top of my head (don't quote me on that)

If your selling illegally then that's where the trouble comes in, just be sensible.

Its not illegal to own equipment just when its put together

Also there has been a big uptake on steam condensers for indoor beer brewing lately, so unless someone knows what they are looking at.

took this from another web site
oh and excise is about $38atm but will go up 2% soon

' Is it illegal to distill alcohol in Australia?

NO! It is NOT illegal to distil alcohol in Australia. Distilling is like driving, it's perfectly legal so long as you have a license. And depending on the purpose of the alcohol you are distilling, it's possible you don't need a licence at all.

People presume the license has to do with safety, that the government wants to make sure we're distilling spirits safely. This could not be further from the truth. The license is actually issued by the Australian Tax Office (ATO). It's completely free, and the catch? You have to pay tax on the alcohol you distill to drink (as opposed to alcohol you distill to make hand sanitiser, or essential oils, or anything else that does not attract excise).

This is because of a law passed in 1901 where the government at the time decided home brew was illegal, determined as a grain based liquor with more than “two points” {%} of ethanol. Gough Whitlam went on to change the law in early 1970’s to make it OK to brew beer and wine, but still you have to pay tax on any alcohol that is distilled for drinking, even if it's for personal consumption in your own home. This is where things get a bit weird. If you try to get a license to distil alcohol at home for your own personal consumption, the ATO will not give you one. This is because they have no way of knowing how much alcohol your distilling and drinking at home (remember excise is only applicable on alcohol you distill to drink). If you have a business on the other hand, and are selling the alcohol you make, the ATO can see how much you're selling and how much excise you're paying to make sure those two things match. If you are a business, the ATO will generally have no issues granting you the license, so long as you can meet all their criteria.

This tax is built into every bottle of spirits you buy so it's not a special tax on home made spirits. If you do the calculations, you'll find your favourite spirits cost up to 90% less when you take the tax off. Based on the August 2021 excise rate of $88.91 (it goes up every 6 months) a 700mL bottles of 40% alcohol has $24.89 of excise attached to it. If that bottle costs $40, there is also $4 (ish) GST. Total tax is $28.89 which means the distiller, distributor and retailer share the remaining $11.11. That's how much that bottle of liquor actually costs.

There are a couple things to go over here. This first is permission for your still. If you buy a still 5L or under, you don't need permission from the ATO to buy it. We also don't need permission from the ATO to sell it. That's why we only sell one still, the Air Still, which is 4L. If you intend on using the Air Still to distil water, make essential oils, herbal tinctures, hand sanitiser or anything else that is not for drinking, you don't need a license from the ATO. Go for gold. If you use the Air Still to produce alcohol for drinking, you need an excise manufactures license from the ATO and you need to pay tax on that alcohol.

But 5L is pretty small right? As our mothers always said, if you're going to do something, do it properly. That's why we sell 25L boilers and condensers that can be attached to each other to make a still, like the Turbo 500. Because these two things are not attached when you purchase them, you don't need permission to buy them and we don't need permission to sell them. You will however need permission to "manufacture" a still before attaching a condenser to a boiler over 5L. You will need this permission even if you're not using the still to produce drinking alcohol. If you're going to use the still to produce drinking alcohol, you need an excise manufactures license from the ATO and you need to pay tax on that alcohol.

There is some good news. From 1st July 2017, you can claim a refund of 60% of the excise duty you have paid on spirits you have distilled. The maximum refund you can claim is $30,000 per financial year and it must be made within 12 months of paying the excise duty.

In summary:

Want a still over 5L? You'll need to Get Permission
Planning to produce alcohol to drink? You need an Excise Manufacturer License
Want to claim 60% of your excise back? Here's information on the Refund Scheme

The most important thing is, don't be scared! The ATO are really friendly and helpful. Make sure you buy the right equipment and use the right ingredients to ensure you're distilling safely. Using our equipment and distilling yeasts, you'll only be producing safe to drink ethanol, rather than poisonous methanol. The methanol content in our washes is so low, it can't even be detected.

There is more methanol in a glass of orange juice than in your average 25L sugar wash. The fores and heads (what we call the first part that comes out of the still) contain a higher concentration of acetone, methyl ethyl ketones and a few other higher alcohols that you don't want to drink as they cause killer hangovers. By discarding the first 50mL of a 25L wash, you're getting rid of this and the bulk of the methanol, leaving behind safe drinking pure ethanol.

Beer, wine and most spirits from the bottle shop do in fact have methanol inside, the worse the hang over the higher the methanol content of what you're drinking. Distilling your own alcohol properly with the right equipment and ingredients will produce an even cleaner, safer drink than you can buy commercially. Happy distilling!''

[brewbruz]

New here, and I know this thread is old, so if I'm cutting across convention in dredging up an old thread - apologies.

To answer the original question, I would have thought that one of the first steps is to reform Australia's tax system. I spotted comment at:
https://www.aussiedistiller.com.au/viewtopic.php?p=20524#p20524
mentioning the Henry Tax Review (https://treasury.gov.au/review/the-australias-future-tax-system-review
So, I checked it out and it looks like a lot of the good work done by Henry has been squandered and forgotten.

One of the keys to legality appears to revolve around excise and revenue recovery. Part 2, Vol 2 of the Henry Report at E5 Alcohol Taxation goes into the mess of how alcohol is excised. One of Henry's recommendations was to simplify matters across the board and apply a common volumetric tax on alcohol (an approach used elsewhere in the world, so it's not a novel idea), justified in part that it "... would better address social harm through closer targeting of social costs." This caught my eye because it made me think, "when was the last time that government used tax reform as a way of helping people?"
From what I can glean here:
https://www.ato.gov.au/business/excise-on-alcohol/lodging,-paying-and-rates---excisable-alcohol/excise-duty-rates-for-alcohol/
it's still a dog's breakfast.
For commercial manufacturers supplying a slate of products to market, they must have a serious compliance burden that could be readily simplified as well and they would greatly benefit from simplification.

So, my take is, that until government at a federal level can rationalise this part of the tax regime, which will invariably involve negotiation with the states, then there's SFA chance that there'll be reform in the DIY sector. Given federal government priorities at the moment, I'd say that the political will for this one is not strong.

I find some historical irony in the situation given that at one time in Australia's past, rum was a de facto currency:
https://www.australianfoodtimeline.com.au/rum-corps/
To end on a lighter note, if DIY spirit production was a thing back then, I suppose it would have been the equivalent now to setting up a home PC and mining bitcoin.