New York Wants To Tax Your Alcohol Too

We recently told you that a proposed sin tax on soda would make a sixer of hops cheaper than a pack of pop. Not anymore!  The New York Health Department now hopes to raise taxes on alcohol, robbing New Yorkers of one of the last vices to have escaped the finger-wagging clutches of the nanny state. Right now, New Yorkers pay 7 cents worth of taxes on a bottle of beer, 37 cents on a bottle of wine and a whopping $3.61 on a fifth of liquor. The proposed plan would hike those taxes up 10 cents per drink, more than doubling that Budweiser penalty.

Nothing's official yet, but Health Department Executive Deputy Commissioner Adam Karpati told the Daily News:

"It's one of the things on the menu."

That's the menu that's already banned trans-fats, strictly limited cigarettes and is likely to have you paying through the nose for Diet Coke any day now.

Shockingly, Headmistress Bloomberg hasn't weighed in on the proposal. And while the stated goal of all these initiatives is to improve New Yorkers' health, there's also the huge boon the levies bring to cash-strapped Albany and City Hall. (The state raked in $206 million on alcohol taxes last year.)

Meanwhile, common citizens also feeling the recessionary pinch would be wise to convert their apartments into personal distilleries. You'll probably get a trend piece out of it.