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CHANGE OF THE TAXATION OF BEER PRODUCTION IN THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE 19TH CENTURY

E. S. Kravtsova, L. I. Vyazovchenko

Abstract

By the beginning of the XX century in the Russian Empire home beer production was not subject to any taxes and was widely developed among peasants. To large holidays, especially local, village, to weddings peasants always boiled beer in large quantities, but again same only for themselves, not on sale. In the late nineteenth century significantly increased the role of indirect taxes, and above all drink taxes. By the beginning of XX century. Russia had the following indirect taxes: taxes on sugar, matches, oil, tobacco, beer, fruit and grape wines, drinking monopoly, customs taxes and fees, inheritance taxes, stamp duties. The system of indirect taxes should include income from the monopoly price for the products of the state industry and monopoly tariffs for rail transportation. The first place among indirect taxes was traditionally occupied by drinking, which included beer taxation, which was the largest item of the state revenue budget – its volume is two and a half times higher than the income from all direct taxes. In the last thirty years of the nineteenth century, the income from drinking more than doubled; this was due to a twofold increase in the rate of taxation itself, that is, in the Russian state beer taxation had a positive fiscal value.

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