So Oregon wants to raise the per barrel tax from $2 to $47?

That would mean about a $4 rise in a 6-pack. I HOPE peopel are fighting this.

The reason they say is that they have not raise the price since the 70's.

Here in Wisconsin the tax is $1 per barrel and has been that way since the 60s. While our governor is making drastic cutbacks because he screwed us all over he has said he will not touch the beer barrel tax.

A drunk Wisconsin is a happy Wisconsin. (he did not say those exact words)

 

the liberal way to make every issue insolvent is to raise taxes, dont you know that?
despite every single economist saying that to solve issues with economics, lower taxes, they do the opposite and things get worse. youd think theyd have learned this seeing as how theyve been doing this for about 60 years now.

 

Hmm, how do you/they come up with the $4/6 pack method?

A barrel is about 3968oz and a 6pack is 72oz. Meaning that you can get a little more than 55 6packs per barrel.

A $45/barrel increase to seem to be about $0.82/6 pack increase, not $4.

 

$1 per barrel?? Dang, that sounds cheap! I wonder what our is?

 

They are:
http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f19/oregon-beer-tax-petition-104256/

 

Looking at the Virginia code, it looks like the tax here is $7.9515 per barrel. You read that right. It is specifically "Twenty-five and sixty-five hundredths cents per gallon per barrel".

It gets even weirder:

"Two and twenty-two one hundredths mills per ounce per bottle on bottles of more than twelve ounces each. "

A mill is 1/10 of a cent.

 

Something tells me there is going to be a boom in home-brewing...

 

lets not make this a liberal vs. conservative issue.

Anyway, a quick google search shows that the sponsor, Rep Cannon, is a kid and probably doesnt fully understand the issues with something like this. he just sees that the tax hasnt followed inflation for 3 decades and sees it as a way to increase revenue....another idea that the Ore legislature has on the agenda to increase revenue is to have every car equipped with a GPS so they can tax on a per mile basis...

In these dark times for states, they are going to come up with some kooky ideas to drum up revenue. Even here in KS, which is primarily conservative, they are looking at all sorts of ways of increasing fees and such. Nearly every state this year is going to have a budget shortfall! Prepare for increased taxes, OR reduced services...

 

don't worry everyone everything is going to be great this stimulus package (all 100 of them) is gonna solve all of our problems. Hopey hope changey change. Bah haha

 

I think there are more than 12 six-packs in a barrel.

 

I vote for less services. I think there are plenty of extraneous services going on right now. We need to get back to basics in a lot of areas. That said, they should try and raise the tax a bit at a time if they want to raise. People get upset over a huge increase even if it's been still for many years.

GPS? Sounds like an invasion of privacy to me.

 

Thank you beirmuncher for pointing out the obvious! A barrel is 31 gallons or 3968 oz. If you are drinking 12 oz cans, that is 330 cans per barrel. So a price jump of $45 from $2 to $47 (this is assuming the $47 per barrel number is accurate, I for one would like to see references) would wind up costing the brewry an extra 13.63 cents per can or bottle, so lets say 14 cents. For a six pack that is about 84 cents cost to the brewry which they will pas on to wholesalers, liquor stores and bars.

As someone who has worked at a liquor store, I can tell you the markup on most beer is very low as you are competing with the next guy and the gas stations. In addition you always want beer to be a high turnover item to keep stock fresh. Sometimes markup is 5% - 10%, so an additional 5% to 10% on 84 cents brings it up to a little under a dollar extra per 6 pack per person.

Now bars on the other hand, it considering the 300% to 400% markup some of them have, paying an extra $4 for 6 beers at a bar does not seem like an unreasonable statement. So I can see how they would get the headline an extra $4 per 6 pack, but just doing back of the envelope math, one can see it doesn't reflect the real truth.

Additionally none of us buy beer anyway so why the big complainfest.

 

Because it's wrong, and standing against it is the right thing to do. That's how the .gov can take from us - not enough folks get involved because they don't think they're affected.

 

not only that but where does it stop. If the gov puts a higher tax on this and gets away with it, what's next and how much.

 

I think a lot of us homebrewers still buy a lot of commercial beers, I know here in Oregon all of the homebrewers I know are really into drinking commercial styles not only because we enjoy them but also because we learn a lot from it. All of you that think it's a good thing that homebrewing will become more prevalent because of this increase are sorely mistaking, it's not good for us homebrewers either if all of our craft breweries are not doing well, all of the supplies come from the same place. Also for those of us who are thinking of going commercial at some point in our lives this increase is devastating. Sorry I'm just getting really irritated by all the threads that have been started and someone is always like "well that's good there will be more homebrewers!!" homebrewing is a hobby it's not for everyone and the last thing I want is a bunch of people doing it because they have to or they wont get to drink beer, this isn't supposed to be a chore it's supposed to be fun.

 

can we keep this a beer forum?

 

yes please let's not talk about the stimulus package there are already threads for that.

 

Why single me out I'm not the only one, and who are you kidding. I bet there are plenty of non beer related threads on this forum. Don't beat me up because you don't like what I said. I'm on the same side as you. Lastly don't think for a freakin second that that BS stimulus doesn't affect homebrewers, commercial brewers, and the very suppliers that we buy from. I merely poked fun at the situation.

 

Ahem.....

Before we go throwing stones...

We're all entitled to a few OT mulligans. But...political rantings are not permitted in the technical forums.

 

Guys.......

America is jacked up. We all got greedy and put every penny we had (and trillions we didn't) into real estate to earn a quick buck. When the bubble burst (as it had to do, everything crumbled and it took a while to realize that we had everything in real estate, I mean everything.

I am neither an elephant or a donkey, but I think just blankly saying "lower taxes" to help the common man, is moronic. How do you pay for all the state-run goods/services (and bailouts)? Do you like roads? schools? hospitals? college? defense? police? firemen? etc. Get my point?

I think Oregon is actually doing the right thing here. They are waking up and realizing they export more craft beer than any state in this country and haven't been making any money on it.

C'mon....beer is a luxury. We don't have to have it. We can pay less than a dollar a sixer more to help out in these f-ed up times.

 

Like it or not, beer is a vice, just like smoking. When taxes are raised, vices are the first to go up. I'd rather have a beer tax than more general sales tax, or more income tax.

 

The problem shouldn't be raising the tax, it should be the fact that its going from two dollars to 47$. That's a pretty steep rise all at once. This isn't just going to be a few cents more for a six pack for Oregonians. These craft breweries are going to lose there competitive angle on the larger companies. They're not near as well off as the larger companies and when they are taxed on the amount they brew, in those quantities, it's not just a buck. People are going to lose their jobs over this. Not to mention the fact that this tax is supposed to be to help fund more treatment for mental health issues and other alcohol related problems. Which is funny because the state government used less than 6% of the $156 million dollars in beer tax in 2008 for these programs and can't quite account for the rest. Hmmmm

 

So you ask -

Do you like roads? Yes - and I pay fuel taxes.

schools? Yes - and I pay property taxes.

hospitals? Yes - most hospitals are private institutions - but we do pay county taxes which the county uses to pay the hospitals when they care for those who cannot afford the outrageous fees.

college? Yes - and I pay property taxes and tuition.

defense? Yes - and I pay federal income taxes.

police? Yes - and I pay property taxes.

firemen? Yes - and I pay fire district taxes.

Get my point?

 

nicely said.

 

i think youre almost finding you point deserbronze. the general fund pays for all of the social services that government provides, and i dont have a problem with that, but when you talk about raising taxes on a single item by 1900% to contribute to the alleviation of a deficit created by a government overspending for unnecessary social services for those that dont deserve it, youre overstepping your bounds. and by the way, if you look at history, time and time again, blanket tax cuts are proven to dramatically stimulate economies whether it be federal or state or local. proven over and over again. if people are allowed to keep more of THEIR OWN money, then spend THEIR OWN money the way they see fit, everybody wins. anytime the government has issued massive tax cuts and cuts on capital gains, the gdp and yes, even federal tax revenues, have steadily climbed. look it up.

 

I made the point I wanted to make - we are already paying taxes for all those items.

This idea that we should just fork over our hard-earned money so that the government can waste it has to stop. I'm tired of the government showing up with their hands out for every hare-brained scheme that comes down the pike.

I agree with your argument - let the people keep as much of their money as possible. They will spend it as they see fit - more people will have jobs - those people will all pay taxes. The government will have more money - and so will we.

I notice that the people who say "We can pay more taxes" usually aren't paying more voluntarily. They would do just that if they really believed that more money would improve the situation.

 

I really don't want to turn this in to a blue red issue, but how about the slew of tax cuts in the past 8 years? those hurt our economy and made our deficit climb. Actually our economy has been better of under regimes with more government spending (i.e. Clinton, FDR, ect.)

 

The problem was not the tax cuts - it was the runaway spending. All those clowns, Democrats and Republicans alike, were spending money - OUR MONEY - like drunken sailors. Both parties share the blame for this mess. And what is their solution? Spend more of OUR MONEY.

 

lower taxes & bailout to the tune of 1.5 trillion?

The math does not add up.......where does the money come from? We can just print more, right?

 

We could cut government spending. My income is down substantially - so what do I do? No vacations this summer. We rarely eat in restaraunts.

I'd prefer not to have spend more on what commercial beer I purchase that's brewed in Oregon.

How much more are you willing to pay in taxes? 30%? 40%? 50% of your income? This madness needs to stop.

 

When they talk about monetizing the debt, they mean releasing more money into the system. By printing it. One dollar doesn't really have anything behind it except what the US says it is worth and what the world thinks its worth.

More of anything decreases the price per unit. Supply / demand.

This is a scary time and nobody really knows whats going on, as no one has had to do anything like this before.

 

400 - 500 % markup from manufacturing cost to retail store price is perfectly within reason. If the cost as Harv says is $.82/ six pack to the manufacturer than you could certainly expect to see a $4 bump in retail price.

 

there is precedent as FDR attempted to "stimulate" the economy out of the Depression by pouring an avalanche of money into government backed programs such as the TVA among many others. The results were disastrous for the economy and plunged the country deeper into inflation and unemployment.

It took WWII and the montrous shift to a wartime manufacturing economy to break the stranglehold of the depression.

This barrel tax will temporarily increase state tax revenues until the manufacturers begin to layoff employees, close up shop, and/or move out of state to cope.

 

It's been proven through research that FDR fiscal policy didn't help at all. It was the Feds monetary policy that made the difference.

Victory gardens and essentially zero unemployment during the war didn't hurt either.

 

All I know is everyone is being scared into believing that our country is about to go down the drain. They are being backed into a corner and told that we do this or else. Bottom line is this stimulus plan is a bunch of special interest and pet projects that would have otherwise been put by the way side. The government and president are using the term stimulus to hide what it really is. There are billions in stupid crap like honeybee insurance. Over 90% of this country that is able to work does, things are not as bad as we are being led to believe. There are over 3 trillion more dollars in "strategies" to fix the credit market, and the housing market.

 

The massive amounts of pork in these bail outs is nauseating.

but back to the issue at hand, if any one wants to fight the beer tax raise, more power to them.

 

Amen, brother! Put more people to work. Encouraging private enterprise to expand and create jobs will straighten out this financial mess. Long-term some major changes are needed.

 

I'm gonna run out of brew fast if this thread keeps going.

 

actually, thats exactly what theyre doing, theyre just printing more, which is going to spur massive inflation with a stagnant economy. whats that called.........stagflation, we had it with carter, we had it with fdr. two things, world war 2 fixed it after fdr, and reagonomics fixed it after carter. whos going to fix it after obama???? and by the way, the tax cuts of the last 8 years caused the highest down jones industrial average ever in its history, it caused the highest gdp in history ever, it caused the lowest unemployment in history ever, it caused the highest foreign trade confidenece ever, it made the usa THE ONLY superpower in the world, it stabilized world markets, especially japan and ireland. lemme tell you what caused the mess were in now.........the dems elected in 2006. notice thats right when everything started to change for the worse???? theres a lot more specifics id like to get into, but this is not the thread nor the blog for it. just keep in mind, cutting taxes fixes free market economies, spurning socialism destroys free market economies. and which one are we???

 

Done.

Conduct political debates in the debate forum.

Leave the technical forums alone.