EDITORIAL: A bipartisan push in Congress to reform the beer tax

Washington, D.C., is currently full of partisan bickering over tax reform. But if there’s one thing a bipartisan majority of legislators — and many Americans, as well — can support, it’s an ice-cold, refreshing beer.

So perhaps it should come as no surprise that a movement for beer tax reform is gaining steam.

Chris Furnari, reporting for the website Brewbound.com, wrote that a majority of U.S. senators now support legislation that would reduce excise taxes on all brewers and importers. Fifty-one senators have co-sponsored Senate Bill 236, the Craft Beverage Modernization and Tax Reform Act, introduced in January by Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Roy Blunt, R-Mo.

Mr. Furnari noted the legislation also has strong support in the House, with 281 members backing the companion bill in that body, House Resolution 747.

The bill would be particularly impactful for smaller, craft brewers, plenty of which exist here in Nevada. Brewbound’s report states that, for domestic brewers making fewer than 2 million barrels annually, the bill would cut in half the federal excise tax on the first 60,000 barrels, going from $7 to $3.50 per barrel.

That’s a savings of $210,000, hardly chump change for many craft brewers.

For all other brewers, the excise tax would drop from $18 to $16 per barrel for the first 6 million barrels, and the tax would remain at $18 for production beyond 6 million barrels.

Several beverage lobbying groups heralded the prospect of this legislation moving forward. Said Beer Institute CEO Jim McGreevy: “Beer is bipartisan, and I want to thank the broad coalition of senators and House members from across the country for supporting this common-sense legislation that will provide critical tax relief to America’s brewers and beer importers.”

There’s even a Senate Bipartisan Small Brewers Caucus, whose members “do sometimes quaff together at local D.C. breweries,” The Hill reports. Its counterpart in the House has 225 members, the largest bipartisan caucus in Congress.

Lowering taxes on beer producers is “returning to the roots of who we are as Americans and entrepreneurship,” said Rep. Mike Kelly, a Pennsylvania Republican.

Tax relief for the producers should help create more jobs in the craft-beer industry and have a trickle-down effect — pardon the pun — to consumers.

Senate Bill 236 and its House companion are not only worthy of a toast, but of passage. Legislators should work to get this act to the desk of President Donald Trump, who should waste no time signing it.

Who wouldn’t drink to that?