Up to +90%: Vietnam makes their taxes fire in beer and alcohol

Vietnam decided on Saturday to increase its taxes on beer and highly alcoholic beverages at 90% by 2031, against 65% currently, state media reported.

The tax rate of alcoholic beverages with an alcohol content greater than 20% and of all beers will increase by five percentage points per year from 2027 to 90% in 2031, according to the new legislation voted by the National Assembly.

Taxes will also increase five percentage points per year for other drinks whose alcohol content is less than 20%, which is currently subject to a 35%tax, which reaches 60%in 2031.

The deputies also approved a new 8% tax in drinks containing more than 5 grams of sugar per 100 milliliters, which will enter into force in 2027 and will increase to 10% in 2028.

The country is the seventh beer consumer in the world

Vietnam Beer Sales were affected by the introduction of a strict alcohol rule for drivers in 2019.

The cultivation of the drink (alcoholic) in Vietnam has “roots too deep to be arrested only by politics,” said Dan Martin, international commercial advisory advisory advisory firm Dezan Shira & Associates. “These measures will slow the market but will not condemn it.”

According to Dan Martin, behavioral changes were already underway, more and more Vietnamese alcohol that consumed alcohol at home instead of in bars.

With 100 million inhabitants, Vietnam held seventh place in the world for beer consumption in 2022, according to a Kirin Holdings report, a Japanese brass company.

Almost 41,000 Vietnamese die every year due to alcohol consumption, according to the Vietnamese Ministry of Health.