Industry representatives say craft producers need relief from excise duties, which went up automatically on Friday for beer, cider, spirits and malt liquor.
"So I would say they're listening to us. Whether or not they've got the capacity to do it this year is another question."According to the Beer Institute -- a U.S. lobby group -- 99 per cent of breweries now pay half as much in excise taxes as a result of the steep drop in tax rates for small producers. The largest producers saw their payments drop by only three per cent.
Those lower rates have a limit of 75,000 hectolitres, an amount that seemed out of reach when the system was created 15 years ago."The ones that are mid-size and the largest really want to get even larger," Dalmazzi said. "And the excise taxes for them at the high end are really punitive." "Obviously what we'd like to see is the details around that," said Debbie Zimmerman, the lobby group's CEO.
"You usually say OK, we've had a poor crop year, we didn't get the kind of grapes we wanted. We can fix that, " she said.As public health restrictions lift there's hope the industry can rebound, but profit margins are thin for many small producers. The concern is that rising costs will be passed on to consumers, making Canadian craft products less competitive, or force some out of business.
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