Tax could kill cask wine industry

A Hilltops winemaker says potential tax changes in next month's federal budget could kill the casked wine industry.

A volumetric tax would double the cost of casked wine and more expensive wines would come down in price.

Winemaker Jason Brown says the current wine equalisation tax benefits small producers.

He says a volumetric tax would reduce the price gap between the low and high end of the market, but at the expense of bulk producers.

"It would firstly spell the end of cask wine in Australia, I think that market would disappear," said Jason Brown.

"The $1.99 clean skin wines at Dan Murphy's would disappear overnight as well. But it would have very little impact on the pricing of ultra-premium wine."

"We're an emerging industry we need a taxation industry that enables it to flourish as opposed to pulling it back and I think that's the danger of this proposal."

Source: ABC News, 18 April 2013