E-Malt.com News article: US: More Senators joining bipartisan effort to the excise tax paid by small and mid-sized brewers

Citing the growing beer brewing industry in the Rochester region (NY), U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., is joining a growing bipartisan effort to cut the excise tax paid by small and mid-sized brewers, Democrat and Chronicle reports.

Brewers producing fewer than 2 million barrels a year pay $7 a barrel on the first 60,000 barrels. Beyond 60,000 barrels, all brewers pay $18 per barrel. The Brewer’s Employment and Excise Relief (BEER) Act would halve that $7 rate to $3.50 each, and cut the $18 amount by $2 for up to 2 million barrels.

Richard Lozyniak, CEO of North American Breweries, which owns Rochester’s Genesee Brewery, said the tax move could save that company $3.5 million to $4 million a year.

With that money, “They’re going to invest it and they’re going to expand,” Schumer said during a press conference inside the St. Paul Street brewery on March, 23. “It’s a growing industry. We’ve got to support it by cutting this excise tax.”

The BEER Act was introduced in the U.S. Senate earlier this month by Massachusetts Democrat John Kerry and Idaho Republican Mike Crapo, both of whom are on the Senate Finance Committee with Schumer. Currently, counting Schumer, the bill has 22 Republican and Democratic co-sponsors in the Senate.

While the BEER Act targets a slice of American business, Schumer said Congress likely also will end up cutting the U.S. corporate tax rate — currently one of the industrialized world’s highest at 35 percent — to 20 percent.


24 March, 2011