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Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Booze

Uh oh. Is beer tax next?

Posted by Owen Morris on Wed, Feb 18, 2009 at 10:00 AM

beer_kegs_thumb_160x240.jpg
Flickr: Rex Roof
Just a year ago Oregon was the coolest state in the union. Home of beaches, dunes, Portland, lenient pot laws and legal euthanasia it is a smelly hippy free thinker's paradise. But now Oregon is acting like a buzz-kill goober dad and threatening to raise the tax on its nearly 100 breweries by 1900 percent.

In fairness to state legislators who are trying to pass the law, Oregon has one of the lowest beer taxes in the country. Currently Oregon charges the same tax on beer as it did in 1977, a paltry 8.4 cents per gallon or about a nickel per six-pack. But Oregon's tax is not the lowest in the country.

That honor would fall to Missouri and its six cents per gallon. Kansas, meanwhile, has a middle-of-the-road 18 cents per gallon. The reason Missouri's beer tax is so low can be summed up in two words: Anheuser Busch.

Doing some quick math, if Missouri raised its beer-tax rate to 18 cents and Anheuser Busch produced only a quarter of its 160 million annual barrels in the state, that would be around $150 million more for Missouri annually. But it won't happen. AB has too much control.

I once had an eye-opening conversation with a Kansas liquor-control officer who spent many years working on the Missouri side. He said that essentially what happens is that every couple of years a state representative from Kansas City or Springfield will try to raise the tax and essentially be laughed out of town by St. Louis' delegation. The last time I could find an example of this exact situation was in 2005. Now, with all states facing shortfalls, we're due for another attempt. Expect Anheuser Busch, which spends over three million dollars annually on lobbying and another one million in political donations, to be opposed to any bill.

One idea being floated in Oregon is an excise tax on only a certain number of gallons. If a Missouri politician were to propose such a tax on, say, the first 10 million gallons and a half-rate on gallons over that, might it have a chance of passing? In the meantime, I'm just glad Missouri ain't Oregon.

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AB brings jobs to stl not to mention money spent on advertising to bad their a foreign company now. Ill be making my own though, better taste and the satifaction of doing it myself. Cold beer on tap at the house.

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Posted by Anonymous on 04/02/2009 at 4:23 AM

Yep, this article spells it out correctly and Missouri legislators should be ashamed of themselves....but they're not. In fact not only are they not ashamed of themselves they herald the proud flag of a state that the beer drinkers of America would be nothing but proud of, because we've got a state legislature that kisses the ass of the alcohol industry every chance it gets. They take all the beer, money and other perks the industry provides for nights out, re-election campaigns and special events; and then does exactly as the alcohol industry lobbyists tell them to. I'm from Missouri and I say to the Missouri legislature...Show Me...Show me some intelligence! I certainly haven't seen much in recent years from our righteous, holier-than-thou, bought and paid for Bible Belt conservatives...and you can take that to the bank! We don't have enough money to adequately pay for alcohol or drug prevention for youth or alcohol/drug treatment...but that's okay. The beer barons are happy and apparently that's all that matters. Just spell our state: m-i-s-e-r-y.

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Posted by Dan on 02/20/2009 at 11:45 AM
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