There’s a great column by Daniel Bradford, of All About Beer Magazine, in today’s Winston-Salem Journal regarding the proposed new North Carolina excise taxes on beer, wine and alcohol. As you know, Governor Perdue has been going around—she was in Asheville two weeks ago—talking to communities about how to manage the NC budget. Most of the attention on that visit went to not cutting teachers and school funding, which is the right thing to do, but we don’t even know if anyone in our beer community went to see her speak. Was beer even mentioned in her meeting? (If you know, let me know.) The first round of NC “sin” taxes on alcohol were killed, but this one is even harder: NC is proposing to raise the tax on based on its alcoholic content. That means a huge leap in high-gravity beers. (And let’s not forget the federal tax proposal, which is a whole other matter. However, there is S.1058, which proposes to lower beer taxes to pre-1991 levels which is showing strong support online.)

Bradford says:

Most people aren’t aware that the North Carolina excise tax on beer is the sixth highest in the country. And you might be surprised to know that North Carolina collected more last year in beer taxes than all but four other states. Actually, the typical beer consumer spends 40.8 percent of the price of beer on taxes. …

Whatever economic benefit derived from the tax increase would be swallowed by the added economic costs of an industry thrown into crisis.

A statement from the North Carolina Beer and Wine Wholesalers breaks it down into layman speak with some pretty fascinating numbers: North Carolina beer distributors employ close to 3,000 American workers, paying them more than $156 million in wages and benefits. The overall economic contribution from North Carolina’s beer distributors is $350 million. And, here’s the press release from March, when the budget was proposed. (.pdf)

So, what would this tax this mean?

• Higher costs on all things alcoholic from retail to restaurants.
• The tax on a six-pack would go up by a shocking 145%.
  
• A strain on smaller breweries, a good portion of which contribute greatly to our state in both tourism and taxes.
• Possible brewery closures for those unable to stay afloat, most of which are family-owned businesses or entrepreneurs.
  
• Proposals to increase and equalize the tax among all types of alcohol will tax small brewers at the highest rates because their specialty, gourmet and innovative beers typically have higher alcohol contents.
• Brewers already pay a disproportionately higher share of taxes compared with other products – federal, state and local taxes represent over 40% of the retail price for beer while the same taxes equal nearly 24% of the price for all other purchases.

Last month, I met with the Asheville Brewers Alliance, telling them about these issues. I know of a few breweries that have sent in their letters to both the governor and our local state representatives. That’s great, but we need the people to speak. Please, please, PLEASE, write Governor Perdue, write our representatives and senators and tell them, “Don’t tax our beer!”