A release from the Senate President’s office reports that the Senate has passed a proposal to remove alcohol’s exemption from the sales tax. No information on the vote yet — will pass it along if/when I get it. UPDATE: Reports are that the removal of the alcohol exemption was done by voice vote.
Please share widely!
Voice vote seconds after returning from a near 2-hour recess.
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p>No debate. No roll call. Done and done.
Oh, and a message to Charley Blandy.
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p>Charley, in the past couple months I have taken a break from Sam Adams, Magic Hat, and my other favorite craft beers and sampled every type of cheap beer I could get.
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p>I will cede that PBR is, in fact, good for a cheap beer.
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p>Cheers to you, sir.
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p>And for those of you who wonder what the worse was…Labbatt Blue. The stuff was nasty.
Incidentally, temperature is very important for evaluating cheap beer.
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p>Back to the subject at hand, this is a little bit ironic, because alcohol is already taxed by volume: the excise tax. MA excise taxes are not particularly high, all in all. But now it’s taxed coming and going.
It’s nice to see the Senate pass one of Gov Patrick’s suggestions. We need new revenue desperately… this is low hanging fruit. Hopefully this is just the first act in a series of cooperation far better over the next few months than it was the previous.
The cigarette tax has seen massive hikes in the rate in recent years even as the alcohol tax rate (through excise taxes) has been fairly stable. Why the one rises quickly while the other stays flat I can’t quite understand.
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p>Given that a sales tax on a $10 bottle of wine or a pack of beer would be only $.50 (or $.625 if the general sales tax increase goes through), it hardly seems like a business killer.
Now lets take the exemption off soda and candy and be done with tax increases for a while.
Is the sales tax on booze worth? At 5%? At 6.25%? How much is raised now in excise?
I assume that’s at 6.25%. Link.