Wine tax surge just a budget typo

It was enough to make wine drinkers reach for a glass of something much stronger.

Or maybe the whole bottle.

Because hidden deep within the budget papers was a very nasty surprise.

The wine equalisation tax, tipped to raise $780 million in the coming financial year, was projected by the Treasury boffins to continue rising gradually year after year, in line with the economy, reaching $810 million in 2015/16.

Then according to the table in budget papers, it was surge to over $60.7 billion, a rise of 7,397 per cent, in 2016/17.

This obscure little wine tax would then be raising as much as the GST.

Exactly as much as the GST, in fact.

To the very dollar.

And that was a clue.

In the offending table, the revenue raised from the GST was listed in the line directly above the wine equalisation tax.

Someone, or perhaps we can blame computer error, had copied the GST value for that year down one row by mistake.

It was just a typo.

And we can all drink to that.