An interim legislative committee is planning to study Wyoming's beer and liquor tax this summer.
Wyoming's 2-cents-per-gallon tax on malt beverages is the lowest in the nation. It has remained unchanged since it was first passed in 1935, about a year after Prohibition was repealed.
The study is among several tax studies assigned to the Joint Interim Revenue Committee this summer and fall.
A House committee has approved a bill that would raise the cigarette tax by five-cents-per-cigarette and a dollar a pack. Republican Representative Gerald Gay of Casper is the main sponsor. He says money from the increase will help offset rising Medicaid costs.
“And tobacco is related to that because tobacco has such a profound impact on health care," Gay said. "So we figured out a way to sort of frontload health care costs against one of the biggest health care users that there is.”
Some in the wind energy industry have expressed concern that the wind production tax credit might expire at the end of the year.
U.S. Senator John Barrasso says he shares that concern and blames the on-again, off-again nature of such tax credits on the lack of a federal energy policy.
