Craft Beer Policy has Nova Scotia Craft Brewers Paying Higher Taxes

Brian Titus, the president of the Craft Brewers Association Of Nova Scotia, is calling on the province of Nova Scotia to make some changes to the rules that help govern local beer production.

CBANS says “outdated government regulations and punitive new rules are now holding back the industry and making Nova Scotia an increasingly inhospitable place for craft alcohol producers.”

The government charges a tax, which it calls a markup, on all beer produced in the province. The markup for big beer companies is about 85 percent. But for craft brewers, it’s 40 percent.

Any brewer producing less than 15,000 hectolitres a year (about 4,392,000 bottles) qualifies as a craft brewer and gets the special markup.

But in 2020, the government made changes, including a $750,000 yearly cap on the benefits a craft brewer can receive under the policy.

At the time, many in the craft beer industry felt the government was mucking with the rules to give what was essentially a tax break to one multinational company.

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