From Reason.com:

And a new paper published Thursday by Jarrett Dieterle, a fellow at the R Street Institute in Washington, D.C., questions whether state-run liquor operations charging what amounts to secret taxes in the form of price mark-ups on alcohol are illegal.

The PLCB used to apply a 30 percent mark-up on the wholesale price of liquor, but recently switched to a variable markup that fluctuates from product to product. Either way, that added fee is “a tax in everything but name,” says Dieterle.

The mark-up system lacks accountability, because taxpayers can’t remove PLCB board members at the ballot box. A lawsuit built on Dieterle’s premise could undermine the state’s ability to continue collecting this unseen tax.

“This setup ultimately allows state officials to hide the bill from taxpayers and to rely on what amounts to backdoor taxes to plug budget gaps, all while avoiding politically contentious policy decisions,” Dieterle says.

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