Alcohol Excise Taxes
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Customs and Border Protection Interim Regulations for Refunds of Excise Taxes on Imported Beer, Wine and Spirits

US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) expects to publish tomorrow Interim Regulations authorizing the refund of beer, wine, and spirits excise taxes in connection with the 2017 tax reform act’s reduced rates and credits. The Interim Regulations specify:

  1. Claims must be filed with the National Revenue Center of the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB).
  2. Claims must be filed on TTB Form 5620.8.
  3. A separate claim is required for entries made at each US port or internal revenue region.

The interim regulations will be effective on the date of publication (expected to be August 16, 2018).

CBP also initiated a 60-day comment period that will provide interested parties with opportunities to raise questions or identify issues that are not addressed in the interim regulations.

Please let us know if you have any questions about this development.




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TTB Issues Guidance on Transfers of Beer between Breweries of Different Ownership

Last week, the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) published a TTB Procedure governing the transfer in bond of beer between breweries of different ownership. See TTB Procedure 2018-1 (July 17, 2018). In bond transfers between breweries of different ownership were authorized by the 2017 tax reform act and like many provisions of that act, the transfer provision is scheduled to sunset at the end of 2019.

Some highlights:

  1. The beer transfers can include both packaged and bulk beer.
  2. Transferred beer can be re-consigned while in transit or returned to the shipping brewery.
  3. Most recordkeeping and recording rules are the same as the current regulations governing transfers between breweries of the same ownership.
  4. Because the 2017 tax reform act’s lower tax rates apply to beer “produced” by the removing brewery, beer transferred in bulk does not benefit from the lower rates if the receiving brewer makes no changes or only de minimis changes to the transferred beer.
  5. For excise tax purposes, a beer is “produced” by a brewer if it is “brewed by fermentation or produced by the addition of water or other liquids during any state of production.” Blending alone does not qualify as “production.”
  6. Packaged beer that was transferred does not receive any lower rate of tax and will be taxed at the $18/barrel rate upon removal.
  7. Absent evidence of theft or diversion, in-transit losses of up to 2 percent are permitted without the need to file a report or a claim with TTB.
  8. Bulk containers used to transfer beer between breweries are subject to certain marking requirements.



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CBP Issues Guidance on Alcohol Excise Tax Provisions

Yesterday, Customs & Border Protection (CBP) issued Guidance on the alcohol excise tax provisions contained in the Tax Cuts & Jobs Act (Tax Act). Key points

  1. Importers must continue to pay the full excise tax rate (not the rates reduced by the Tax Act’s lower rates or credits) upon importation.
  2. CBP and TTB are working on regulations to allow CBP to issue refunds retroactively.
  3. In anticipation of the new regulations, CBP advises importers to file protests on liquidated entries where a reduced rate or credit may apply.
  4. CBP will not process refund requests any earlier than January 15, 2019.
  5. The Guidance includes a detailed list of information an importer will need to provide in order to substantiate its eligibility to receive reduced rates and/or credits.

Please let us know if you have any questions about this development.




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TTB to Allow Proprietors to Request Alternating Premise Variances for Storage of Tax- and Non-Tax-Determined Commodities

On May 16, 2018, the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) issued Industry Circular 2018-3, allowing proprietors of distilled spirits plants (DSPs), bonded wine cellars (BWCs) and breweries to submit a request for a variance to the typical method for storing tax-determined and non-tax-determined products. Under TTB regulations, a proprietor designates areas of the premises as bonded and non-bonded. With few exceptions, tax-determined products can only be stored on non-bonded areas of the premises and non-tax-determined products can only be stored in bonded areas.

Under Industry Circular 2018-3, proprietors may request a variance to the bonded/non-bonded designations established in existing regulations. This variance would allow an “alternation” of a specific area or multiple areas between a bonded and non-bonded designation. An “alternation” allows two practices (e.g., brewing and winemaking) statutorily prohibited from occurring at the same premise to occur through the creation of a legal fiction. The premise “alternates” between one type of premise to accomplish one task and reverts to another type of premise to accomplish another task. (more…)




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Five Issues That Impact Craft Brewers

In an article published by The New Brewer, Marc Sorini discusses five issues most likely to have a meaningful impact on craft brewers in the coming years, including:

  1. The Craft Beverage Modernization and Tax Reform Act’s (CBMTRA) new tiered excise tax rate structure, its extending benefits to foreign producers, and its authorization for brewers to transfer beer in bond between breweries of different ownership.
  2. The Sixth Circuit’s published opinion in Byrd v. Tennessee Wine and Spirits Retailers Association, affirming a decision finding that the “durational-residency” requirements imposed by Tennessee law for alcohol beverage retail licensees are unconstitutional under the “dormant” Commerce Clause.
  3. The TTB’s creation of a new unit within its Trade Investigations Division to focus on trade practice enforcement.
  4. The opinion in Mission Beverage Co. v. Pabst Brewing Co. from the California Court of Appeals, which found that “an existing distributor’s receipt of the ‘fair market value of the affected distribution rights’ under [the California statute] does not necessarily make that distributor whole.”
  5. The US District Court for the Northern District of California’s decision in a putative class action alleging that the labeling and marketing of a successful California-based craft brewery was false and deceptive.

Access the full article.

Originally published in The New Brewer, May/June 2018.




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TTB Announces Extension of Tax Credits for Wines Stored at Bonded Wine Cellars and Bonded Wineries

On May 17, the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) issued an Industry Circular, No. 2018-1A, clarifying that under the recently-enacted tax reform legislation (Tax Act), wineries may tax determine and tax pay wine they produce and that is stored untaxpaid at another bonded wine cellar or bonded winery as if the wine were removed from the producing winery’s bonded premises.

Among the Tax Act’s many changes to the Internal Revenue Code, the new legislation (which went into effect on January 1, 2018) prescribed new tax credits for wine and suspended (through 2019) the previous tax credit. The Tax Act also suspended the prior law’s transfer provision, which allowed small wineries eligible for tax credits to transfer their credits to another bonded winery. This threatened to leave small wineries transferring their wines to larger bonded wineries without their tax credits. To apply the tax credits to such wines under the Tax Act, the producing winery would need to physically bring the wine back to its premises and remove and tax pay the wine. (more…)




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TTB in a Deregulatory Mood

Changes in Administration and other political shifts can have subtle and, occasionally, not-so-subtle influences in the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) policies and priorities. In the article, “TTB in a Deregulatory Mood” published by Artisan Spirit, Marc Sorini explores how the Trump Administration’s desire to reduce regulatory burdens on business has already influenced TTB’s regulatory priorities. Particularly, in the most recent “Unified Agenda,” a bi-annual compilation of federal regulatory initiatives, TTB placed a priority on deregulatory projects, several of which would alter the regulatory environment for the industry. Marc discusses how the change in administration appears to have an effect on TTB’s rulemaking efforts.

Access the full article.

Originally published in Artisan Spirit, Spring 2018.




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TTB Publishes Additional Tax Act Guidance on 5010 Wine and Flavor Credits

Today, TTB published additional Tax Act guidance on its website. Three new clarifications address the interaction of the new Tax Act rates/credits with the wine and flavor credits available under 26 U.S.C. § 5010. The clarifications are:

  1. TTB re-confirms that the 5010 credit applies to spirits subject to the Tax Act’s reduced rates, but the 5010 credit cannot reduce the effective rate of tax on any spirit to below zero.
  2. TTB indicates that the effective rate of tax on products receiving 5010 flavor credit will vary, depending on the applicable Tax Act rate applied to the finished product.
  3. The wine base rates, before any reduction through Tax Act credit allowances, are to be used when calculating the wine content credit applied to a spirit under Section 5010.



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TTB Issues Further Alcohol Excise Tax Guidance

On Friday, March 2, 2018, Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) issued its next round of guidance concerning the alcohol excise tax provisions of the recently enacted tax law (Tax Act). TTB has not yet addressed some of the biggest ambiguities contained in the Tax Act, such as (i) how foreign producers can assign excise tax credits to US importers and (ii) how the “Single Taxpayer Rule” will work. Nevertheless, TTB continues to make incremental progress in interpreting the Tax Act.

The March 2 guidance features the following:

  1. A new TTB Industry Circular, No. 2018-1 (March 2, 2018), announces the creation of a temporary “alternate procedure” (aka, variance) allowing wine producers to tax determine and tax pay wine of the winery’s own production stored untaxpaid at another bonded wine cellar as if the wine were removed from the producing winery’s bonded premises. Prior law allowed wineries eligible for tax credits under the small winery tax provisions to transfer their credits to another bonded winery. So, for example, an eligible small winery could transfer bulk wine in bond to a larger bonded winery for bottling without losing the tax credits. The new tax law does not contain a similar transfer provision, leading to the prospect of small wineries losing their tax credits because they transferred the wine to a bonded winery that already used up its tax credits available under the Tax Act. The alternate procedure permits a winery to tax pay the wine as if it were removed from the producing winery’s premises, allowing it to take the tax credit. The temporary alternate procedure authorized by Industry Circular 2018-1 expires on June 30, 2018.
  2. Beer, wine and spirits removed from a brewery, winery or distillery but received in bond from elsewhere can benefit from the Tax Act’s reduced rates and/or tax credits only if the taxpaying brewery, winery or distillery “produced,” “distilled” and/or “processed” the beer, wine or spirits in question. Exactly what processing qualifies the taxpaying facility for the reduced rate or tax credits will depend on specific facts and the commodity at issue.
  3. TTB further qualifies the produced/distilled/processed requirement by indicating that any production process should be made “in good faith in the ordinary course of production” and not done for purposes of obtaining a tax advantage.

Please let us know if you have any questions about these developments.




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2018 Federal Budget Legislation Provides Breweries with Administrative Relief and Acknowledges 21st Amendment

Two sections of Craft Beverage Modernization and Tax Reform Act (CBMTRA) that were dropped from the 2017 federal tax reform law were subsequently added to the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018, signed into law by President Trump on February 9, 2018.

The new law mandates a temporary (two year) change in tax recordkeeping requirements for domestic breweries to eliminate duplicate reports and accounting obligations for breweries that have pub and sampling areas. The intent of the new law is to allow brewers to keep one set of books covering (a) beer removed from brewery for sale for distribution to retailers and (b) beer sold or provided for sampling to consumers at a brewery. Existing regulations and policies led to unnecessary complexity in accounting for brewers and for auditors from the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB). While the recordkeeping changes are required for calendar years 2018 and 2019, TTB may be able to make changes in regulations and policies that will provide permanent relief from unnecessary administrative burdens. (more…)




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