NELSON COUNTY, Ky. — Judge Executive Tim Hutchins is not backing down after the legislature passed Kentucky House Bill 5, phasing out the longtime bourbon barrel tax.
He said he plans to fight back.
“I’m mad about it. I don’t like it,” Hutchins said.
Plans are in the works temporary moratorium on zoning compliance permits for distilleries and distilled spirits. This means the residents in the county will have a voice on what will be located around them in the future.
Hutchins said it was prompted by past complaints from residents and it would be a way to preserve more of Nelson County’s land instead of allowing more distilleries.
“The reason I’m proposing this to the fiscal court, which they passed the first reading on this, because I want people in the community to have a voice of what’s going on in the community,” he expressed.
HB5 would become law in 2026 and would allow distilleries to stop paying taxes by 2043.
Local fire departments, EMS and schools said they would no longer receive funding from these lost tax dollars.
In a statement released by the Kentucky Distillers Association they say, “The final compromise reached in HB5 strikes a fair balance by protecting funding for schools, fire departments, and EMS districts while giving local governments 20 years to plan and diversify their tax bases instead of relying on the ups and downs of a singular industry.”
However, Hutchins said the moratorium will ultimately provide a space for efficient companies to bring jobs instead of distilleries.
“To be allowed to recruit those companies that's going to pay a decent job, it's my part I think as leadership to help provide some of them places for them to locate," he said.
Meetings about the issue were packed with EMS, fire departments and school staff members. They all said it was too much revenue being taken away.
"The state was imposing or letting the distilleries basically write the bill and they had as far as I'm concerned no concern for us," he said.
He also said it's not fair and predicts taxes on residents will go up.
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