Congress Abuses Tax Break Meant to Reward Responsible Wineries

• Print
• Email

U.S. Congress likes to play three-card monte with regulations, daring its constituents to find the reckless industry giveaways that are shifted around under the surface of innocuous legislation. So it is with HR 747 the Craft Beverage Modernization and Tax Reform Act of 2017—a bill which would seem meant to give small artisans a leg up, but actually increases the number of dangerous products on the market.

The Craft Beverage Modernization Act is nothing new. It’s a repackaging of the a bill with the same name from 2015, which never made it out of committee. On its face, the bill drastically cuts taxes on brewers, vintners, and distillers. This alone undermines the United States’ ability to recoup alcohol-related costs through Charge for Harm legislation. However, buried in the bill is a particularly egregious red queen.

Currently, wine manufacturers enjoy a tax break if they produce wine under 14% ABV. This bill would extend that break for wine up to 16% ABV. While this is a simple change on its face, it betrays the public trust. Since the break is meant to incentive vintners to keep their alcohol content low—even though many wines are “naturally” higher—it increases the prevalence of higher alcohol wines overnight. The same “just a glass” become about 15% stronger. Moreover, this is not reducing a tax burden, it’s extending a tax break. It is taking what is essentially a reward for making products with the public good in mind, and giving it to manufacturers who make far less of an effort.

Bill co-Sponsor Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) claims that booze manufacturers “face the unfair burdens of Prohibition-era rules and taxes,” but this seems improbable since alcohol sales were entirely illegal during Prohibition. Indeed, policies like the moderate-ABV wine incentive produce no burden at all.

“The industry is already obsessed with unnecessarily high ABV products,” said Alcohol Justice Public Affairs Director Michael Scippa. “There’s no sane reason to remove an effective economic brake on this alcohol content race.”

Just like in 2015, this bill seeks to reward an industry that has done nothing to deserve it, and has no reason to change.

READ MORE about Charge for Harm.

READ MORE about pending alcohol tax legislation throughout the U.S.

---