Beekeeper Tax Change

Beekeeper Tax Change. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Fruit Grower Report.

The Washington State Legislature has finally passed Senate Bill 6057 giving beekeepers a new tax status. Mark Emrich, President of the Washington State Beekeepers Association explains.

EMRICH: We’re no longer a service organization which we would pay B&O tax. We would pay federal excise tax on all of our food and we would also be paying sales tax in some situations on the sale of products out of the hive whether it was honey or propolis or bees wax.

Washington State is the last state to make this change for beekeepers and Emrich says it will make them much more competitive now.

EMRICH: We’re finally on an even keel with everybody else and that was kind of a problem for large scale beekeepers because they had to put those taxes on their pollination contracts and everything else. So for us to be on an even footing with everybody else we would either have to eat it or we would have to charge the going rate plus all the taxes.

That means that come pollinating season next year fruit growers and more can now get a good deal from a local beekeeper instead of bringing one in from out of state. The bad news for beekeepers is that the bees are still dying.

EMRICH: In Washington we still had 40% overall losses again for last year and over wintering losses right now look like it’s standing around 28-29% so we’re probably going to be pushing yearly losses again close to 40%.

That’s today’s Fruit Grower Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network of the West.