Senators propose lowering alcohol tax

Holy Cow, a tax break for beer, amazing. All for this, hope it works out and passes. Cheers....

 

Not if I have to accept the rest of the pork in that bill

 

Current beer tax in Wyoming:

Beer $18.00 per 31-gallon barrel, or $0.05 per 12-oz can

 

Sorry to be a Debbie Downer, but with the USA saddled with a huge debt and large annual deficit, I am not in favor of lowering taxes, especially for non-essentials. It's irresponsible, pure and simple.

 

Beer is a luxury good and should be taxed as such imo. These particular taxes are just passed on to the consumer and as the article mentions this tax savings will not be passed on to consumers for anyone thinking it might. And with breweries popping up all over the place I don't see the current tax rates being an imposing barrier to entry either for new breweries. I'm curious what will be directly impacted (services, programs) by this lost tax revenue. Not sure if it is known but the article does not mention that.

 

For how much breweries put back into their respective communities, I, for one, welcome the tax reduction, if it passes.

 

You could say that about many different industries. If we don't tax any of them, we have no revenue for the military, social security, roads, etc.

 

The Federation of Tax Administrator's pdf of State Beer Excise Tax Rates says Wyoming's ET on beer is 2¢/gallon, so $0.62/barrel - the lowest in the country.

 

Almost pointless now, but probably from an era where that generated serious revenue and/or helped limit sales.

 

Luxury good should be taxed harshly imo, it's useless from a big picture standpoint. This tax cut will not be passed on the the end consumer anyhow so it's useless from where I stand as well.

 

You know, I knew that. I don't know why I quoted that false info that I got on the web.

 

I saw on the local news today that small breweries go from around 7 bucks to $3.50, so they save 50%, I have to think this helps them overall. The less they pay the better they do, the more people they can hire, etc. If you look at the taxes we pay on goods, income taxes, gas taxes etc. I think we the people deserve to lower as many as possible so I am all for less for anyone and everyone.

 

Add in the tax cuts for small businesses overall and I'd say its time to start a brewery.

 

Well, it wasn't "false" since that is the Federal Rate that the Big brewers pay in every state...

The current Federal Excise Tax "Reduced Rate" for the first 60k barrels of $7/bbl equal less than 2¢ a 12 oz. bottle. Even in the unlikely scenario of the small brewers deciding to cut their prices by 24¢ a case, not sure how much benefit or even noticable that would be for most consumers - especially since it is not unusual for the retail price of a beer to vary more than 1¢ bottle from store to store in many states.

In 1933, at Repeal, brewers paid $5/bbl ( or over $95 in 2017 dollars according to the BLS) and were happy to do it and be back in business. That $5 was equal to their total costs and to their total profit. Something tells me that that is not the case with the current Reduced Rate of $7/bbl (or even the full $18).

That what the OP's CNN article also said.

 

I don't think breweries are going change their prices or retail stores will bother changing all their SKUs for a mere $0.05 per 12-oz beer, so I doubt the tax break will result in lower beer prices for consumers. Even if the price was lowered that's not significant enough for most customers to even the notice the difference.

If one has an ideological stance against taxes, then I can't argue with ideology. I agree with several others above that 1) beer is a non-essential luxury good that is fine to tax slightly higher than non-luxury items; and 2) the current federal tax rates on beer clearly are not hurting breweries.

 

I'm one of those ideologues who believe there should be no taxes on food and beer is foodstuff.

 

I agree on the food item, taxing food or other essentials is wrong. I am not a fan of tax at all since we already get hit every pay check. No one in the political world ever talks about the hit we take purchasing every day goods.

 

Cutting deductions on mortgage interest while reducing taxes on beer is a cynical move indeed.