Nashik: Wineries in wine capital Nashik want the Union government to reduce packing duty on wine bottling from the present 18% to 8% in a bid to facilitate wineries. The expectation of wineries comes ahead of the interim budget of the Centre, to be presented on February 1 for financial year 2019-10.Wineries have to pay over a dozen taxes as it is not included under the ambit of Goods and Services Tax (GST). Moreover, every state has its own tax rates, which increase the cost of wine by three times.Hence, wineries want government to bring wine under GST so it will boost the wine sector in the country. “Wine bottling comes under packaging tax. There is heavy tax on wine bottling which is 18%. We do not get input tax credit on the tax we pay as wine is not under GST. We want government to reduce tax up to 8% at least. This will give a huge relief to the wineries,” said Yatin Patil, president, All India Wine Producers Association (AIWPA).He explained that there are over a dozen taxes on wine, levied both on production and sale. For wine production, there are taxes like excise, bottling duty, winery license fee, educational welfare cess, brand and label fees.The taxes on sale of wine are sales tax or Value Added Tax, license fees, transport fees, vend fees, brand and label taxes.Every state has different tax rates. In Andhra Pradesh, Value Added Tax on wine is 100%. There is cascading effect of these various taxes on wine as its selling cost goes up by three times the production cost. For instance, if the production cost of 750 ml wine bottle is Rs 500, then selling cost is Rs 1,500 per bottle, said Patil.“We want uniform tax structure across the country that will help to have competitive rates of wine across all states. This will also boost sale of wine and fuel the growth of the wine sector,” Patil said, urging the Centre to bring wine under GST.

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