STATE'S BEER, WINES TAXES ALREADY HIGH

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, February 1, 1992                   TAG: 9202030150
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-11   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: PHILLIP SHORT
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium
STATE'S BEER, WINES TAXES ALREADY HIGH
I TAKE STRONG exception to your editorial calling for an increase in the state excise tax on beer and wine. Increasing such taxes would be self-defeating by further depressing sales, not to mention threatening jobs at a time when unemployment is rising.
First, you were wrong when you wrote that raising beer and wine excise taxes would only bring Virginia's rates in line with other states. In fact, Virginia's beer and wine excise taxes are higher than those in every one of our neighboring states. The only exception is North Carolina's beer excise tax.
Virginia's wine excise tax is already the nation's fourth-highest; our beer excise is the nation's 13th-highest. You are way off base to imply that Virginia's beer and wine excise taxes are somehow below a regional or national standard. The opposite is true.
Beer and wine sales in Virginia are not only subject to state excise taxes. They are also burdened by a federal excise tax, and the federal tax was raised recently (Jan. 1, 1991) by a whopping 600 percent on wine and 100 percent on beer.
Nor are beer and wines sales immune to either recession or higher prices brought on by higher taxes. Since the federal excise tax was raised, beer and wine sales in Virginia have declined. Through October 1991, compared to the previous year, wine sales were down 4.34 percent and beer sales down 2.57 percent.
The hard, cold facts are that flat or declining sales threaten jobs. This is just as true in the beer and wine business as it is in any other business, as the mounting layoffs nationally and here in Southwest Virginia bear tragic witness.
In Virginia, there are a lot of jobs in the wine and beer industry - 34,000, to be exact. Those are people directly employed in wholesaling, retailing and production. This doesn't even include the people directly employed by vendors, suppliers, etc. In fact, Virginia's beer and wine industry ranks seventh nationally in terms of economic impact in this state.
The beer and wine industry is a key component of Virginia's economy. This is not the time for the General Assembly to threaten the livelihoods of 34,000 Virginians who work in this industry.

Phillip A. Short is vice president of Bova Distributing Co. in Hollins.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB