{"id":29167,"date":"2021-02-10T09:34:46","date_gmt":"2021-02-10T15:34:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=29167"},"modified":"2021-02-10T09:34:46","modified_gmt":"2021-02-10T15:34:46","slug":"bill-would-reduce-tax-on-certain-alcoholic-beverages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=29167","title":{"rendered":"Bill would reduce tax on certain alcoholic beverages"},"content":{"rendered":"

Taxes on ready-to-drink cocktails would be significantly lowered under a bill considered Feb. 8 by the General Affairs Committee.<\/p>\n

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

LB578, introduced by Omaha Sen. Tony Vargas, would tax ready-to-drink cocktails at 31 cents a gallon. The bill defines ready-to-drink cocktails as spirits in an original container with up to 12.5 percent alcohol by volume.<\/p>\n

Vargas said the current excise tax rate of $3.75 a gallon on such products is \u201cexorbitant\u201d and prices many products out of the market, limiting the profitability of alcohol vendors.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany of these products in the market have similar alcohol by volume to beer and hard seltzer,\u201d Vargas said.<\/p>\n

Zac Triemert, president of Brickway Brewery and Distillery, testified in support of LB578. He said the bill would \u201cchange the landscape of what we can do.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAs long as the canned cocktail tax rate is higher than hard seltzers, it\u2019ll never grow to be a significant part of the market,\u201d Triemert said.<\/p>\n

Justin Brady, testifying on behalf of the Nebraska Liquor Wholesalers, also spoke in support. He said LB578 would provide a much-needed definition for ready-to-drink cocktails.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the market can grow,\u201d Brady said.<\/p>\n

No opponents were present to testify against LB578 and the committee took no immediate action on the bill.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Taxes on ready-to-drink cocktails would be significantly lowered under a bill considered Feb. 8 by the General Affairs Committee. <\/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-29167","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\/29167","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=29167"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29167\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29169,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29167\/revisions\/29169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}