Return of the Rum Runners
04 August 2009 | By Ian in Misc, Opinion, Rants, The Emerald City
Last weekend Washington state just upped its liquor prices an average of 13% per bottle in a bid to help fill its 6 billion dollar budget gap. The estimated proceeds from the increase in liquor tax should cover about 1.3% of the budget shortfall. The problem is, I don’t think they will take in nearly as much as they have estimated.
It hasn’t even been a week and I’m already hearing several people talking about making booze runs down to Portland, Oregon. A casual web search reveals some insightful answers.yahoo.com advice suggesting there is no peril in shuttling copious quantities of booze across state lines, but I remain dubious. However, with over 75% of the cost of a bottle now profits to the state, it will become harder for people to resist a little bit of sales and use tax evasion.
I hate to say it, but it will probably take a horse’s ass to spearhead an initiative to reduce state liquor taxes. It can’t be many more years before people start whining about the ever-increasing rates in general and I know someone will come riding in on their white horse to rescue the taxpayer’s hard-earned dollar once the general consensus agrees that the economy has sufficiently recovered.
Photo credit Thomas Hawk