Your glass of alcohol could have some additional tax cubes

Nagpur:- In what may lead to a rise in liquor prices, the Directorate-General for Goods and Service Tax Investigation (DGGSTI) has increased cumulative demand for more than Rs100 crore from liquor manufacturers such as Antiquity, McDowell’s, Carlsberg, Tuborg in Aurangabad and Nashik, and three distillers in Vidarbha manufacturing county liquors. The step had been taken by the DGGSTI Nagpur zonal unit.

Extra neutral alcohol (ENA) is among the essential raw materials used for human consumption to produce hard liquor. While the liquor consumed is GST-free, tax sleuths have argued that ENA is not intended for human consumption in pure form. And except for the liquor industry, it can still be taxed at 18%. Distillers were actually paying 20% VAT on the content to the state government and 2% federal sales tax on inter-state transactions.