I’m not sure if I’ve actually read the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau’s (TTB) Annual Report cover to cover before. It’s actually quite good and informative. Here’s a few things I learned from reading the 2016 report.
TTB’s vision is to “be the world’s authority in the regulation, taxation, and science of alcohol and tobacco products and a model for next generation government”
- TTB has three strategic goals: Collect the Revenue, Protect the Public, and Management and Organizational Excellence
- There are 82,391 total permittees, 97% of which are from the alcohol industry, however only a subset (12,941 in FY 2016) pay taxes in a given fiscal year.
- $22.1 Billion in revenue was collected in FY 2016, on a total budget of only $106 Million
- 161,477 Certificate of Label Approval Applications (COLAs) were received in FY 2016. That is a massive number!
- Tobacco tax collections are trending downward (12% since 2012), but still amounted to $13.3 billion in FY 2016, representing 60% of all TTB tax collections
- Tax collections in Virginia and North Carolina exceed $5 Billion each. California and Kentucky are north of $1 Billion each. In Mississippi, North Dakota, and Wyoming, tax collections are each less than $1 Million.
- In FY 2016, TTB processed approximately 8,000 applications for a federal permit
- California boasts 7,254 alcohol permit holders, far exceeding the next state of Washington (1,911)
- Wine products represented roughly 72% of all COLA applications in FY 2016, followed by malt beverage (18%) and distilled spirits (9%)
- Distilled spirits represented 48% of the 11,452 formula applications, followed by wine (32%) and malt beverages (20%)