A theory of the allocation of producer levies earmarked for downstream promotion is developed and applied to quarterly series (1970:2–1988:4) on red‐meats advertising by the Australian Meat and Live‐stock Corporation. Robust inferences about program efficiency are contained in the coefficients of changes in promotion effort regressed against movements in farm price and quantity. Empirical evidence of program efficiency is inconclusive. While the deeper issue of efficient disbursement of funds remains an open question, there is evidence, at least, of efficient taxation.