Beeronomics: Taxes

This was brought to my attention (with the comment "must be an election year"):

Beer-brewing in Oregon generates more than $2.3-billion every year. Senator Ron Wyden proposes a federal tax cut for small breweries in hopes of expanding the industry even more.

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"The fact of the matter is...Oregon makes beer, and beer makes good paying jobs for our people," explains Oregon Senator Ron Wyden.

Senator Wyden is proposing a major break for small breweries: taxes on the first 60,000 barrels would be cut in half. Ninkasi expects to produce 32,000 barrels this year, so this tax cut would save them more than $100,000.

"We started with a very small pool of resources to build a brewery, so to reduce the amount of federal tax by half would be a third of that bottling line cost or three full-waged employees a year," says Jamie Floyd, Ninkasi Owner. "Those are pretty big significant additions to the brewery."

Oakshire Brewing doubled their production this year to 4,000 barrels and, as a fairly new business, could definitely use the tax break.

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Ninkasi and Oakshire are 2 of 78 brewing companies around the state generating more than $2 billion a year. Senator Wyden says he sees the potential for the industry's future growth and more job opportunies as well.

"Obviously there is so much economic hurt in our state right now that I'm making my special focus those industries that we can really look at as having an opportunity to generate good paying positions and employment," concluded Wyden.

Senator Wyden says the tax cut proposal has bipartisan support. He hopes to pass the bill before the end of the year.