Winemakers vow to resist ownership rules

Winemakers will fight a plan to force them to own a vineyard before they can claim a lucrative tax rebate. The government tightened the wine equalisation tax (WET) scheme in the federal budget.
The Winemakers Federation of Australia said the change was unfair because a lot of vineyards were leased. “Quite often these days you have leases of vineyards and leases of wineries. It’s efficient not to actually own the asset,” the lobby group’s acting chief executive, Tony Battaglene, said.