Liquor stores worried about proposed taxes
Liquor stores say it's been one hit after another from the state. First it was the proposal to sell wine in grocery stores. Now, there's a proposal in the state budget to raise the wine tax from 19 cents per gallon to 51 cents per gallon, and to raise the beer tax from 11 cents to 24 cents a gallon.
Currently, New York has one of the lowest wine taxes in the country and taxes on wine and liquor have not gone up since the early 1990s. Action News spoke with Pascale's Wine and Spirits in Cicero and they told us they feel it's a narrow band of consumers that are being taxed, and some smaller stores may eventually have to pass those increases onto the consumers. Manager Scott Berlew said "this has been a real difficult year as a store. Trying to compete in this market and with the recession and everything, this is just another nail in the coffin, but we can probably survive but I don't know how many small stores are going to survive with a tax increase that big."
There is also a proposal to impose a surcharge of 32 cents on any wine currently in stock. If the budget is passed, the tax increases would go into effect on April 1.
