TTB survives, though Obama wants to give IRS a little of its powers

The TTB will survive in its current form for at least another year. While the Obama administration considered eliminating it and dividing its duties between the FDA and the IRS, when the budget proposal came out Monday, that idea was not in it.

However, the administration did propose what seems to me a minor change, allowing the IRS to initiate investigations and prosecutions for excise tax violations on alcohol sales.

The Wine Institute was ready with heavy artillery to fight this. I have a copy of a letter the Wine Institute got signed by seven U.S. senators opposing this move. Wine America opposes it also.

Quite honestly, I'm not sure why. It doesn't seem like a big deal. But the Wine Institute spends a lot more time thinking about excise tax than I do. I plan to contact the Wine Institute as soon as I get home from Portugal (lucky me) to get more details.

For now, I felt like I owed you this update, considering more than 10,000 people came to my blog when I broke the news that the administration was considering eliminating the TTB this year.

I also want to snivel and whine and make excuses for a very light week on the blog. Here's my tale of woe: I set up two posts for this week, one imaginative, and one which I spent a day researching. Then I made the mistake of opening them to make last minute tweaks in Portugal with my iPad, which is not compatible with Blogger. They disappeared instantly. Man, did that suck. I know I can't expect a lot of sympathy since I'm eating roast pig leg and grilled razor clams and drinking outstanding single variety Vinho Verdes that I didn't even know existed. But still, that sucked.

Update: It just happened again, twice, with this post. Even I don't deserve this. I don't know which to blame, Apple or Google. I hate them both right now.

I plan to reconstruct the posts when I get home (spoiler alert: politics and baseball, my two favorite things to try to link to wine), as well as check in with the Wine Institute on the TTB thing. So thanks for reading this off-the-cuff update. I'll bring you more details when I have them. And pass the Loureiro.

*****

Please check out my Valentine's Day anti-column on Palate Press: Let's Take the Romance Out of Wine. Appropriately, I spent V-Day apart from my lovely wife, and the rural restaurant where I dined -- where every table other than the wine group's was set for two with candles and hearts -- played "All By Myself" over and over. Maybe they just like the melody?

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I rarely acknowledge my wife on the blog, but I'm writing this on V-Day. I love travel, I'm having a great time, I'm eating and drinking well and the story's really interesting. But I miss her. Ai shite iru.

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