The Obama Administration has published its Fiscal Year 2016 Revenue Proposals. For the fourth year in a row, the Administration is proposing relief for small brewers in the form of removing bond requirements in 2016. The proposal provides:

The proposal would require any distilled spirits, wines, and beer taxpayer who reasonably expects to be liable for not more than $50,000 per year in alcohol excise taxes (and who was liable for not more than $50,000 in such taxes in the preceding calendar year) to file and pay such taxes quarterly, rather than semi-monthly. The proposal would also create an exemption from the bond requirement in the Code for these small taxpayers. . . .

Additionally, the proposal would allow any distilled spirits, wine, or beer taxpayer with a reasonably expected alcohol excise tax liability of not more than $1,000 per year to file and pay such taxes annually rather than on a quarterly basis.

Until such a proposal is agreed to by Congress (unlikely), small brewers that reasonably expect to be liable for not more than $50,000 in Federal beer excise taxes (i.e., less than 7,143 barrels of beer) for the current calendar year, and were not liable for more than this amount during the preceding calendar year, must hold brewer’s bonds covering 29 percent of their projected tax liability for the calendar year. These small brewers are currently required to obtain bonds with a fixed $1,000 penal sum.