Tasmac imposes additional fee on liquor, beer manufacturers

Chennai: The state govt has tapped its most dependable revenue streams to shore up its finances — liquor. It has imposed an additional fee on every standard case of Indian-Made Foreign Spirits (IMFS), beer and wine manufactured in the state.

This move is expected to raise around ₹600 crore annually.Now the rules mandate an additional fee of ₹90 per standard case of IMFS, ₹40 per standard case of beer and ₹20 per standard case of wine, payable before the products are removed from manufacturing facilities. The govt has amended the Tamil Nadu Indian-Made Foreign Spirits (Manufacture) Rules, 1981, the Tamil Nadu Brewery Rules, 1983, and the Tamil Nadu Wine (Manufacture) Rules, 2006 through G.O.

Ms. No. 30 issued by the Home, Prohibition and Excise Department to levy the charges.Under the amended rules, a standard case of IMFS refers to a carton containing either nine 1-litre bottles, twelve 750-ml bottles, twenty-four 375-ml bottles or forty-eight 180-ml bottles. For beer, a standard case means a carton with twelve 650-ml bottles, twenty-four 325-ml bottles or 24 cans of 500 ml each. Similar packaging norms have been specified for wine.

The amendments were notified on June 5 under the Tamil Nadu Prohibition Act, 1937. Industry sources said the levy effectively seeks to formalise and capture an ‘input cost’ component that was being factored into pricing but did not accrue to the govt. The new fee structure is expected to channel that amount directly into the state exchequer.The additional fee will be a condition attached to the licence granted for manufacturing liquor, beer and wine in the state and will be payable on every standard case issued or sold by the licensee before its removal from the manufactory.According to estimates, the state-run Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corporation Limited (Tasmac) network sells around 55 lakh carton boxes of IMFS and 27 lakh carton boxes of beer annually. Based on these volumes, the additional fee is projected to yield approximately ₹600 crore in revenue each year.The additional revenue will come on top of the substantial earnings the state already derives from liquor sales. During the 2024-25 financial year, the Tamil Nadu govt earned ₹48,344 crore through excise duty and value added tax (VAT) on liquor sold through Tasmac. This included ₹11,020 crore in excise duty and ₹37,324 crore in VAT. The revenue was higher than the ₹45,856 crore collected in 2023-24, underscoring the liquor sector’s importance as one of the state’s largest sources of non-tax revenue.