This is a tool that calculates the cost of alcohol, and optionally show how much of this is tax (in the UK).

In more detail, the tool calculates the daily, monthly, weekly and annual cost for each relevant alcohol type, together with the combined periodic costs, and displays the results in a table.

Additionally, if required, the tool displays a UK tax details results table, showing how much of the alcohol costs for each period and alcohol type is VAT, how much is duty and, thus, how much in total is tax. If this table is required, the alcohol prices should be entered in £.

The information required for the calculations is grouped by alcohol type in a table with one row per type. It is only necessary to enter the data for the relevant alcohol types; the other type data can be left empty.

There are nine alcohol types shown: beer, cider (including perry), sparkling cider (including perry), wine, sparkling wine, fortified wine (e.g. port), alcopops, spirits and liqueurs.

Each relevant alcohol type requires the following compulsory information:

• The amount of consumed alcohol in terms of the measure type, e.g. 2 pints of beer or 3 small glasses of wine.
• The alcohol measure type, with the choice of options depending on the type of alcohol, e.g. pints of cider or bottles of alcopops. For each option, the associated amount in millilitres is also displayed. One option is available for every alcohol type and that is litres, since this is the default option if none of the other choices applies.
• The period for the measured alcohol consumption, which can be daily, weekly, monthly or annual, e.g. 2 pints of beer on a daily basis.
• The average price of the chosen measure of alcohol. This should be entered in £ if the UK tax details are required.
• The average strength of the alcohol consumed as a standard ABV (Alcohol by Volume) value, which is only required for the tax calculations. This is usually expressed in percentage terms (unless the formatting is explicitly set to express it as a decimal).

The data (e.g. duty rates) used by this tool was obtained primarily from...

Alcohol Duty Rate changes from 26 March 2012

The standard rate of VAT is 20% (increased on 4 January 2011).

Associated tool link: http://www.coggit.com/tools/cost_of_alcohol.html