At Llamas Financial, we don’t file your winery taxes. But we make sure everything is organized, accurate, and ready when your CPA needs it.
Answers to what winery owners ask us most often about tax. If your situation is more specific, it is worth a conversation.
They are two separate obligations. Federal excise tax on wine is reported to the TTB by the bonded winery that removes the wine from bond. Sales tax is a state and local matter that applies when you sell to a customer. Your CPA will confirm how each one applies to your operation.
Vineyard development costs are generally capitalized during the pre-productive period rather than deducted in the year you spend them. Once the vines reach commercial production, those costs are recovered through depreciation. The rules here are specific, so confirm the treatment with your CPA before you file.
Wine you are holding for sale is inventory, not an expense. The costs of making it, including fruit, labor, barrels, and production overhead, are capitalized into that inventory. They show up as cost of goods sold in the period the wine actually sells, which is often years after the money went out.
They can. Shipping wine to a customer in another state can create sales tax and licensing obligations in that state, and every state sets its own rules and thresholds. Keep your DTC records by ship-to state so you can see where your volume is building before it becomes a problem.
A counted inventory by vintage and SKU, your TTB filings, reconciled bank and loan statements, and clean point-of-sale and wine club reports. The cleaner those are, the less your CPA has to reconstruct, and the smoother your filing goes.
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