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Good news for cider producers and drinkers that the government’s plan to increase duty across the board by 10% above inflation has been shelved to get the Finance Bill through Parliament before the election (along with the obnoxious “broadband tax” on landlines). It seems that they seriously underestimated the strength of the opposition this would provoke – as I said before, it was about the only measure in the Budget that people were talking about. There is a case for reforming cider duty, but imposing an indiscriminate flat-rate increase that gave no recognition to smaller producers was not the way to do it.



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