Revenue accepts 88-pint keg
Traditionally, the Revenue Commissioners have taken a 50 litre beer keg to contain 92 pints (because Revenue reckoned that the vintner saved an extra four pints-worth of beer through the head on each pint) and not 88 despite arguments to the contrary from vintners.
With an allocation of four pints per keg to spillage, wastage etc the nett number of pints on which the vintner was taxed therefore came down to 88.
“We never accepted that,” VFI Chief Executive Padraig Cribben told Drinks Industry Ireland, “Late last year they confirmed that the nett is 88 pints now per keg with wastage etc to come off that.”
In a letter to the VFI last October on behalf of the Chairman of the Revenue Commissioners it was stated that the “historical position” of a 92-pint keg no longer applied and that the expected number of “saleable” pints per keg needed adjustment.
“Of course if they accepted four pints of waste in the old scenario they cannot argue against it now,” stated Padraig Cribben.
