WEYMOUTH landlord Pete Whittle, from the Kings Arms and Sailor’s Return, said that a five per cent increase in alcohol duty and a new Machine Games Duty (MGD) would hit the leisure industry.
MGD will have a standard rate of 20 per cent and a lower rate for low stakes and prize machines of five per cent of net takings.
Mr Whittle said: “Everything we get that comes into the pub helps to keep beer prices down. We have to pay rents and gas and electricity which is going up.”
He added: “I feel the pub trade is getting hit big-style all the time.”
Weatherspoons spokesman Eddie Gershon, said the MGD was another unfair tax on pub operators.
He said that the company already paid £400 million a year to the government in tax.
Mr Gershon said: “We’d argue it’s a tax that adds to the already large amount of tax the company pays.”
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