Proposed Beer Tax in Arizona

It has just come to my attention that Arizona legislators are considering a substantial increase in the tax on beer... about 2087% of an increase. Somebody in the legislature wants to take the tax on a gallon of beer from 16 cents a gallon to $3.50 for each gallon. That's an increase of $7.85 in tax on each case. Factor in the fact that retail pricing is ultimately based on the actual cost of the item, so a new tax would be factored into a retailer's profit margins and you are looking at a net increase of over $16 per case at checkout. That works out to $4 per six pack or 70 cents per bottle. On draft beer, the increase would end up raising the price of a keg by as much as $75, meaning that a pint of beer at your local watering hole would go up by about a dollar.

And what does this "luxury" tax pay for? Drug and alcohol treatment programs...at least that's what the proposal says for now. This is a misguided effort to tax millions of responsible beer drinkers because of the irresponsibility of a relatively small minority. I find this totally unacceptable.

Nationally, beer is already taxed 68.6% more than other purchases. Increasing these already high taxes another 2087%, can only lead to more downturn. The folks hurt the most will be the small breweries that will see a substantial drop in business as people can no longer afford to drink their products and instead turn to cheaper liquors. There are approximately 25 small breweries in Arizona that will be adversely affected if this bill becomes law. That's 25 breweries, and maybe 250 Arizonans that will be directly impacted by this proposal. Extend that out to distributors, retailers and other related businesses and this bill has the potential to devastate quite a few lives.

This bill, HB 2524 is set for initial discussion by the House Ways and Means Committee at 2:00 on Monday, February 23rd. For more details go read these two articles, one on this particular issue, and the other about the general concept of increasing beer taxes. http://www.examiner.com/x-241-Beer-Examiner~y2009m2d17-Proposed-state-beer-tax-increases-hard-to-swallow--impacting-jobs-and-beer-drinkers and http://www.examiner.com/x-241-Beer-Examiner~y2009m2d20-Arizona-legislators-trying-to-outdo-Oregon-with-a-2087-increase-in-beer-tax . Sorry about the long links, and the fact they may not be clickable (just copy and paste in to your browser), I haven't figured out this whole blog thing yet.

I encourage you to get involved in this matter and pass this on to other beer drinkers. The job you save just might be...mine.