{"id":25650,"date":"2019-03-26T11:48:32","date_gmt":"2019-03-26T17:48:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=25650"},"modified":"2019-03-26T12:14:06","modified_gmt":"2019-03-26T18:14:06","slug":"bills-would-change-alcohol-taxation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=25650","title":{"rendered":"Bills would change alcohol taxation"},"content":{"rendered":"

The General Affairs Committee heard testimony March 25 on two bills that would change how alcohol is taxed in Nebraska.<\/p>\n

\"Sen.
Sen. Tony Vargas<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

LB723, introduced by Omaha Sen. Tony Vargas, would lower an alcohol manufacturer\u2019s or wholesaler\u2019s per-gallon excise taxes as follows:
\n\u2022 from 31 cents to 25 for beer;
\n\u2022 from 95 cents to 90 for wine from non-farm wineries;
\n\u2022 from six cents to five for wine from farm wineries; and
\n\u2022 from $3.75 to $3.50 for alcoholic spirits.<\/p>\n

Vargas said the bill would allow breweries to hire more employees and buy additional equipment.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve seen that we\u2019re not as competitive as we can be in Nebraska when it comes to excise taxes,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Lindsey Clements, owner of a brewery in Omaha, testified in support of the bill. She said reducing taxes would help her business grow. Omaha-based breweries must compete with nearby Iowa businesses that are paying 12-cents less per gallon of beer in excise tax, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cLB723 makes a clear statement that craft beer is welcome in our state,\u201d Clements said.<\/p>\n

Chris Wagner, director of Project Extra Mile, testified against LB723. Wagner said the bill would cost the state revenue and lead to more alcohol consumption.<\/p>\n

\u201cCheaper alcohol leads to excessive rates of drinking,\u201d Wagner said. \u201cHigher alcohol taxes save lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vargas also introduced LB682, which would tax alcoholic spirits as proof gallons\u2014liquor that is at least 50 percent alcohol. The bill would not affect the tax rate for beer and wine. LB682 also would require the Nebraska Liquor Control Commission to create a labelling system for alcoholic spirits sold in the state.<\/p>\n

Vargas said all alcohol currently is taxed by the wine gallon, regardless of the product\u2019s alcohol content, placing an unfair burden on certain manufacturers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a much fairer system for allowing breweries into the marketplace with mixed-beverage products,\u201d Vargas said.<\/p>\n

Zac Triemert, owner of an Omaha brewery, testified in support of the bill. He said there has been a recent rise in \u201cready to drink\u201d beverages that are like a mixed drink in a can. It is a market that Nebraska is missing out on, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cLB682 would create a whole new viable business in Nebraska,\u201d Triemert said. \u201cCurrently, Nebraska is collecting very few dollars from spirits-based RTDs and I\u2019d like to change that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Omaha pastor Portia Cavitt testified against the bill. She said the negative consequences of increased drinking far outweigh any gains from lower taxes.<\/p>\n

The committee took no immediate action on either bill.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The General Affairs Committee heard testimony March 25 on two bills that would change how alcohol is taxed in Nebraska. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10],"tags":[184],"class_list":["post-25650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-affairs","tag-sen-tony-vargas"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25650"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25650\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25652,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25650\/revisions\/25652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}