Ream v. U.S. Department of the Treasury

The Liberty Justice Center has filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in an Ohio home brewery lawsuit that has far-reaching implications for the federal government’s power to tax citizens.

Ream v. U.S. Department of the Treasury, filed in January 2024, challenges a nineteenth century law banning at-home distilling. This prohibition threatens would-be-distillers with a felony conviction, jail time, and thousands of dollars in fines for distilling alcohol at home. The case’s plaintiff—the owner of a brewery who wishes to also distill alcohol at his home for personal consumption—argues that this prohibition exceeds Congress’s designated authority. After an Ohio court dismissed his case in March, the plaintiff appealed his case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.

The Liberty Justice Center filed an amicus brief on behalf of the brewery owner on July 1, arguing that this prohibition is unconstitutional. The brief asks the appeals court to overturn the lower court’s dismissal, stating that the federal government cannot weaponize its limited taxation power to ban American citizens from participating in their own hobbies or other at-home ventures simply because those activities could theoretically generate taxable revenue.

“The federal government does not now have—nor has it ever had—the authority to issue sweeping limitations on Americans’ rights and activities simply because it wants to tax them,” said Reilly Stephens, Director of Amicus Practice at the Liberty Justice Center.

The Liberty Justice Center has also filed an amicus brief in the closely-related case McNutt v. U.S. Department of Justice, a Texas case challenging the same at-home distilling prohibition.

The Liberty Justice Center’s amicus brief in Ream v. U.S. Department of the Treasury is available in the legal filings below.