What’s In Your Beer? A Lot Of Tax Dollars
As temperatures heat up, so do beer sales. The price you pay in Arizona covers much more than labor and raw materials.
Like most states, Arizona adds a sales tax on beer. But that’s just one tax. There’s also a federal excise tax and a state excise tax. The federal tax charged to domestic brewers and importers ranges based on location and quantity.
Arizona charges a state excise tax of 16 cents per gallon or $4.96 per barrel. The Tax Foundation ranks Arizona 36th for state excise taxes. Wyoming ranks the lowest at $0.02 per gallon and Tennessee the highest at $1.29 per gallon.
The Federation of Tax Administrators (FTA), an organization representing principal tax collection agencies of all 50 states, compiled this 2018 list of state tax rates on beer.
According to The Beer Institute, a trade group, on average 41 percent of what consumers pay for beer goes to a tax, including local sales tax, consumption taxes, business taxes and the federal excise tax.
