Liquor Taxes Could Go Up 400%, Thanks to Congressional Dysfunction

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

The last two years have been good ones for Lyon Distilling. At the small rum producer in St. Michaels, Md., a town on the Eastern Shore of Chesapeake Bay, production has jumped from 4,000 bottles a year to 40,000. Four employees have become 15.

Explosive consumer demand explains some of that growth, said Jaime Windon, the company’s chief executive and co-founder. But she attributes most of it to a steep cut in federal excise taxes on alcoholic beverages, which Congress passed at the end of 2017 as part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

“We used to be tiny,” she said. “Now we’re running like a machine.”

Thousands of small distilleries, breweries and wineries have similar stories. But their fortune may end soon, thanks to congressional paralysis: The tax cut, known as the Craft Beverage Modernization and Tax Reform Act, is set to expire on Dec. 31, and legislators have until Friday to extend it.

If they don’t, distilleries like Lyon will face a 400-percent tax increase, with the first payment for many due on Jan. 15. That has craft-beverage producers scrambling.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/liquor-taxes-could-go-up-400percent-thanks-to-congressional-dysfunction/ar-BBY3yj4?li=BBnbcA1

[marble falls]

1. Picked a good time to quit drinking .....

[smirkymonkey]

2. Well, looks like I found out what my New Year's Resolution is going to

be. I'll only break it if and when Trump is out of office or kicks the bucket.

[Newest Reality]

3. Gee whiz...

I guess the base will have to fire up the stills and keep a sharp eye out for the revenuers. It's gotta' be a deep state plot to keep 'em from the booze now. Ain't gonna' fly.

[mitch96]

5. That's what I was thinking.... Break out the stills boys!! theres money to be made!! nt

[Igel]

6. So the rates will go back up to what they were in 2016.

Oh, the horrors, Obama-era prohibition, indeed.

The reduction in rates were only for small producers. 100,000 "proof gallons" or less. So when it says "like Lyons," it really means small. If they'd produced 110,000 gallons instead of 40,000 the tax would have been $13.50/gal.

https://www.ttb.gov/what-we-do/taxes-and-filing/tax-rates

That's actually a pretty steep increase--but I won't notice it. I don't buy small, expensive, boutique labels when it comes to liquor, I already can't afford them. Plain vodka, then I make my own borovicka.