POLL: How Much of My Booze Bill Will Go to Taxes?

Washington State Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the initiative that allows private businesses to sell spirits and many retailers are ready to open the doors on Friday.

Mercer Island voters might recall voting on last November when they overwhelmingly chose (67 to 33 percent) to end the state liquor store system.

and Safeway's mailed circulars this week included their sale prices on liquor. That's the first time they've done that after many years of the Washington State Liquor Control Board's monopoly on liquor stores.

However, the fine print shows that the State Liquor Taxes and the Per Liter tax are not included in the advertised prices.

So how much will you pay for booze in Washington now that you can buy it anywhere?

Mercer Island Patch's sister site in Bellevue has created a helpful spreadsheet to find out how much booze and liquor tax will add up to starting Friday, found here: http://bit.ly/JUCriH

An Associated Press story reported that the retail price of some spirits may rise instead of go down, as some might have expected.

On top of the sales price, you will also pay the State Liquor Tax (20.5 percent) and a per liter tax ($3.7708 per liter), and any B&O taxes that may apply to the store sales, according to the Washington State Liquor Control Board.

Just out of curiosity, Patch put together a spreadsheet to calculate the total cost of your liquor. You can use the spreadsheet, too. You'll need the sticker price of the booze, and the volume of bottle in either liters or ounces.

(Unfortunately, I couldn't figure out how to make it embedded and editable on this page, but you can go in and enter the information on that GoogleDoc.)

Initiative 1183 required the state to get out of the liquor sales business by June 1. The state has already auctioned the state-run stores.  opened liquor sales to retailers with a footprint of 10,000 square feet who apply for liquor licenses. , with some exceptions (listed here on the state liquor control board website).