Tumbling rates of smoking, a drop in alcohol consumption and the rise of electric vehicles will punch a hole in the federal budget worth tens of billions of dollars and force the slack to be filled by ordinary taxpayers.
There are already signs the sharp increase in cigarette excise over recent years, aimed at encouraging people to give up tobacco use, is hitting the budget with revenue falling more than $2 billion short of expectations in a single year.
It follows years of large increases in excise, by both sides of politics, cigarette plain packaging and a change in the timing of excise collection that delivered a one-off $3.2 billion increase in excise in the 2019-20 financial year.
Shane Wright – Sydney Morning Herald – 2021-07-04.