Everyone on Capitol Hill is saying they want a “clean” bill, with no special industry provisions. But Mark Gorman, senior vp, Distilled Spirits Council, told Kane’s Beverage News Daily the odds of getting the Craft Beverage Modernization Act into the overall tax bill “are the best in years.”
We noted this morning’s Wall Street Journal had an article about industry associations of all types working to get ordinary workers to meet with their elected officials, and that meant, of course, setting up meetings at locations in a congressman or senator’s home district.
DSC has been doing that, Gorman told us. We’re sure every other industry group has been on the same goal.
“We’ve done a number of on-site visits with small distillers,” Gorman said. In Wyoming, he took a craft distiller to a charity event where all where Wyoming’s two U.S. senators and its only congressman were in attendance.
“They all talk in terms of our taxes are so high … if we could reduce our tax rate as proposed in the bill, there would be more money to invest” in new equipment and market expansion.
What happens if Congress passes a tax reform bill would a reduction in bev/al excise taxes? “We don’t view this as our only shot,” Gorman told us. What’s remarkable, he said, is there’s been collaboration between all three segments and between big and small producers.