The Senate Finance Committee included provisions to reduce the tax burden on US brewers and distilleries for two years, and to allow wine producers a permanent tax cut.
The proposal lowers the tax on beer to $ 16 a barrel on the first six million barrels brewed by a brewer or imported by an importer, with the $ 18 remaining above that volume. For those producers who produce less than two million barrels of beer during a calendar year, the provisions lower the FET rate to $ 3.50 from $ 7 for the first 60,000 barrels in domestic and $16 per barrel for further barrels produced.
The bill will reduce the FET for distilled Spirits from $ 13.50 to $ 2.70 for the first 100,000 gallons produced and $ 13.34 for the next 22.13 million gallons. The bill would raise the excise credit to $ 1 per gallon wine for the first 30,000 gallons produced, 90 cents per gallon for the next 100,000 and 53.5 cents per gallon wine for the next 620,000.
With regard to wine producers, the proposal changes the small local producers’ credit on wine excise duty, removing the domestic production limit of 250 000 wine gallons, thus opening up credits to all wine producers and importers, and adding sparkling wine producers and importers to its scope
