NY: stores, restaurants must pay more taxes on already-purchased wine

Cazenovia, NY — Richard Hubbard paid an excise tax when he bought a bottle of Chateau Mouton-Rothschild French Bordeaux for The Brewster Inn 24 years ago.

Now the state wants Hubbard and other retailers and wholesalers to pay an additional excise tax on the bottles they already own.

The one-time excise tax is called a “floor tax.” The state says its purpose is to equalize the excise tax rate across all of the inventory on the floor of a store, restaurant or warehouse.

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