Alcohol sales up despite new tax

Massachusetts residents seem to be drinking more alcohol, despite new sales taxes on beer, wine, and spirits.

The Revenue Department said its reading of tax revenue numbers indicates the volume of alcoholic beverages sold over the last five months increased nearly 1 percent, even though consumers were paying a new 6.25 percent sales tax on those beverages.

Robert Bliss, a spokesman for the agency, said sales taxes on alcoholic beverages totaled $14.4 million in January and $52.5 million since the new tax took effect last year on Aug. 1. Those numbers far surpass what the department had been forecasting. The agency had been expecting the new sales tax on alcohol to bring in $80 million this fiscal year, but now expects that number to be $100 to $110 million.

Bliss said the uptick in sales surprised state officials. “When you increase a tax, that will, to a certain degree, depress sales. There’s always that tradeoff. That’s basic economics,” Bliss said.

The Revenue Department’s analysis looks at the state as a whole. Sales of alcoholic beverages along the New Hampshire border may be going down, since it is easy to slip across the state line to avoid the tax. But, overall, alcoholic beverage sales in Massachusetts are up. The state’s excise tax on alcohol, which is based on volume sales, went up .9 percent over the last five months, the Revenue Department said.

Overall, January revenue collections were $1.846 billion, up 3.1 percent compared to the same month a year ago. For the first six months of this fiscal year, revenue collections were $10.55 billion, down 2.7 percent from a year ago.