President Donald Trump signed a sweeping omnibus package dubbed the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” into law on July 4.
The tax and spending legislation has been criticized as a redistribution of wealth from the poorest Americans to the wealthy. The Yale Budget Lab projected that the bottom 20% of earners would see their income decline by around $700 while the top 1% would see their income increase by $30,000.
The legislation includes a hodgepodge of provisions, including $350 billion earmarked for border security; cut backs to social safety net programs such as Medicaid and SNAP, including stiffer work requirement provisions that could lead millions of recipients to lose benefits; and rollbacks for clean energy tax breaks.
Also included in the legislation are provisions that benefit businesses such as beer distributors. The National Beer Wholesalers Association (NBWA) and its more than 600 members had advocated to make permanent tax cuts that they received in 2017. In May, NBWA president and CEO Craig Purser stated that distributors faced “a steep tax increase” if Congress allowed the tax cuts to expire.
On Thursday, Purser hailed the legislation’s passage through Congress of the “Main Street tax provisions” as a “positive outcome for the beverage distribution industry.”
In a statement, Purser wrote that the bill’s provisions “provide needed certainty to local, family-owned businesses like beer and beverage distributors.”
He continued: “With the enactment of the budget reconciliation package, Main Street businesses can now more confidently invest in their operations and communities with the certainty of a permanent 20% 199A pass-through deduction, greater estate tax relief, permanence of provisions like bonus depreciation and interest deductibility, as well as the continued ability for pass-throughs to use the state and local tax deduction.”
Beer Institute president and CEO Brian Crawford also praised provisions within the bill as “good news for beer,” including “pro-growth tax provisions like immediate R&D expensing, full expensing for equipment and a permanent 20% pass-through deduction – key wins for innovation and investment.”
The bill passed the House of Representative by a vote of 218-214, with all Democrats and two Republicans voting no. Vice President JD Vance cast a tie-breaking vote in the Senate, where three Republicans and all Democrats and independents voted no.
Revisit prior Brewbound coverage of the NBWA’s advocacy for the tax permanence included in the legislative package at the organization’s annual legislative conference in April.