Tax assassin Grover Norquist and Americans for Tax Reform have thrown their support behind some important legislation that was introduced to mark American Craft Brew Week – The Brewer’s Employment and Excise Relief Act of 2011 or BEER Act.
While we’re certain that Grover & Co. regularly quaff craft brews, ATR’s support is also grounded in fiscal policy. Here’s Grover in his letter to Senators Mike Crapo (R-WY) and John Kerry (D-MA), the sponsors of the bill:
The BEER Act would reduce from $7 to $3.50 the tax paid per barrel on the first 60,000 barrels produced by small brewers. This is estimated to generate $19.9 million in capital for small beer producers, an enormous resource to promote job growth in the craft brewing industry.
Currently, brewers large and small pay the same tax on any production over 60,000 barrels. Set at an astounding $18-a-barrel tax, this represents a crushing weight on small brewers. This onerous tax penalizes production and disincentivizes industry growth, unnecessarily handicapping an industry that provides 100,000 jobs in the United States alone.
Your bill addresses this discrepancy by lowering the excise tax from $18 to $16 per barrel for production from 60,000 barrels up to 2 million barrels. This will provide an estimated $27.1 million for craft brewers to create jobs and spur economic growth.
Now, you don’t have to be a craft brew fan (like me) and you don’t have live in a state that produces many of these craft brews (like me) to get behind something as common sense as this. Unless, of course, all you drink is Bud Light™, which just means you’re a loser with no taste.
[K]ey Republicans have not responded positively to signals that President Obama will push for some tax increases in his deficit-reduction plan to be laid out this week. David Plouffe, a senior White House adviser, indicated Sunday that the president would reiterate his call to raise taxes on households making $250,000 and above and also signal a desire to look at other provisions in the tax code that wealthier taxpayers use to their advantage. In his fiscal 2012 budget, released in February, the president called for allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire for income above $200,000 for individuals and $250,000 for couples at the end of next year. That statement came roughly two months after a compromise with congressional Republicans had extended current tax rates for the richest taxpayers for two years. [