Emailed Congressman for HR 1236 - Small BREW Act
Thursday, January 5, 2012 at 8:19AM 
Well, here's something that I haven't done in a long, long time: I actually emailed my district's congressional representative, Congressman Mulvaney, to ask him to sign on as a cosponsor to H.R. 1236 -- the Small BREW Act.
For those of you that don't know what that this (and I'm assuming that is a majority of the public), it actually reduces excises taxes paid to the federal government for each barrel of beer produced. For example, on a typical 30-barrel batch of beer we would need to pay $210 in taxes. Over the course of a month of producing with our proposed capacity, we would probably pay close to $2,000 a month in taxes. Larger craft beer houses would probably double or triple that figure in taxes. The Small BREW Act would reduce the brewery's obligation by half. The savings could go to purchasing additional equipment and/or hiring more employees.
As one of the few remaining small, local and growing! manufacturing entities remaining in the United States, support for this legislation should be a no-brainer. But, what I was surprised to see was that in my home state of South Carolina, there was not one co-sponsor to the Small BREW Act from our delegation. There are several co-sponsors to the legislation from North Carolina. So, for my South Carolina brethern, I think it's time you give your congressional representatives a heads-up on the legislation and see if they would be willing to support the Small BREW Act.
