incredible!
incredible!
thanks for the Tap & Mallet link.
Sen. Schumer has been visiting local breweries
Schumer visits Southern Tier Brewing Company
March 8, 2011 - By DENNIS PHILLIPS Special to the OBSERVER
LAKEWOOD - The excise tax for each barrel of beer produced by Southern Tier Brewing Company may be cut in half if a federal bill is passed through Congress.
On Monday, U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., announced his support for the bill while touring the local brewery.
Schumer, along with Phineas and Sara DeMink, Southern Tier Brewing Company owners, County Executive Greg Edwards and County Legislator Rudy Mueller, D-Lakewood, announced that he has joined a group of bipartisan colleagues to introduce legislation that will cut the excise tax for small breweries in half. Schumer said the bill would help small brewers across New York reinvest in their business, hire new employees and revitalize communities.
''The No. 1 goal is to create more jobs,'' he said.
Brewers now pay a $7 excise tax for each of the first 60,000 barrels brewed each year. Under the bill, the rate would be slashed to $3.50 per barrel, resulting in potential savings of $210,000 a year for the brewery.
The bill also cuts the tax by $2 on the next 1,940,000 barrels produced, resulting in potential savings of $3,880,000 each year. This totals more than $4 million in potential annual savings for brewers.
Any brewery that brews fewer than 6 million barrels of beer per year is eligible for the tax cut, which would allow brewers to reinvest in workers, new equipment and new space as they expand their business.
''Small breweries throughout Upstate New York not only brew great beer, they also create great jobs,'' Schumer said. ''By cutting taxes for these small businesses, we can help grow the economy and put more New Yorkers back to work in stable, good-paying jobs. Breweries are the crown jewels of so many of our communities, and many of them have renovated charming old warehouses in downtowns across the state. Putting more money back into these businesses will be good for economic development, good for jobs and good for New York.''
Being at Southern Tier Brewing Company, Schumer announced his support for the legislation alongside brewery owner Phineas and Sara DeMink and brewery employees. Schumer said the brewery, which started in 2004, is a prime example of what a group of people can do with a business when they work hard.
''It is what is great about America,'' he said. ''Look what happened here. They have this beautiful, beautiful brewery.''
The Southern Tier Brewing Company started in a leased 10,000 square-foot space in the Stoneman Industrial Park, where the brewery was built. Since opening, Southern Tier has grown significantly both in size and its product line. By 2007, Southern Tier was credited as having increased in volume by 140 percent from 2005. The business is in the midst of an expansion that will double the size of the brewery itself. Southern Tier Brewing Company's products can be found throughout New York, the U.S and the world. The brewery employs 35 people.
The approximately 650 small breweries across the country combine to employ nearly 100,000 American workers. In New York, the beer industry directly supports approximately 8,000 jobs through brewing and distribution, and nearly 60,000 jobs overall when retail sales are factored in. These jobs paid nearly $1.7 billion in wages in 2008, and accounted for almost $5 billion in economic activity.
A Harvard study of the proposal predicts that passage of the proposal would increase economic activity in the small-brewery sector by more than $115 million in the first year, and by more than $733 million over the first five years. Every dollar saved by cutting the excise tax would result in nearly $11 dollars in economic activity, providing an immediate and substantial boost to the economy. According to the study, the proposal would generate over 2,700 new jobs in the first year, and an additional 375 jobs per year for the next four years.
