http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2009-03-27-tobacco-tax_N.htm

Cigarette tax increase starts this week rising from 39 cents per pack to $1.01 per pack.  That's a whopping 62 cents more. 

The rationale seems fair: The extra cost will discourage people from buying smokes and the extra tax revenues generated by cigarette sales goes into the state children's health insurance program.  We want people to smoke less because smoking causes deadly diseases and we all want health care for kids, so it's win/win, right?

Then there is the paradox:
1. If I a buy a carton of Marlboros, am I not doing a good turn for needy children?
2. If more smokers cut down and quit because of the tax--part of its stated intention--then we'll need another source of revenue for S-CHIP.

Which is the stronger argument, the rationale or the paradox?
???

BTW, the tax on chewing tobacco will rise from 19.5 cents/LB to 50 cents/LB (for those of you buying chaw by the pound).

The truth is, no matter how much they hike up the price on smokes and booze, people will still pay it. This won't deter anyone and they know it. It's just a money grab.

The truth is, no matter how much they hike up the price on smokes and booze, people will still pay it. This won't deter anyone and they know it. It's just a money grab.


No matter what, nicotine addicts are going to buy cigarettes.  Nicotine is more addictive than heroin.  Some of these nicotine addicts have many children and very little money.

A smaller hike would've been smarter.  Despite how addicted many smokers are, some of them actually will smoke less, which, as mentioned before, will lower the money going to SCHIP.

This is only going to encourage more cigarette smuggling.  Especially in places like California and New York, where the taxes were out of control to begin with.

And contrary to what the President says, I doubt that the money will go anywhere but the general fund.  Just ask those from California where the .50 from Proposition 10 (1998) has gone to.

Even though Prop 10 was passed off to the voters as a way to fund Childrans programs (including special health care to children that live with smokers), not one penny of that money has gone anywhere but the state's General Fund.

I read that yesterday morning in Stars & Stripes, and it rather ticked me off.  This is the largest tax hike in US history.  Thank heavens that smokes here are only $19.95 a carton.

Hey, maybe they can use that as a recruiting slogan.

Join The Army, Go To War!
No Taxes, Cheap Smokes!
Talk to your local recruiter now!

Naw, I doubt that will ever happen. 

I read that yesterday morning in Stars & Stripes, and it rather ticked me off.  This is the largest tax hike in US history.  Thank heavens that smokes here are only $19.95 a carton.



Ha!  You'd be pissed as sh*t to see how prices are in Chicagoland!  I was in Walgreens the other night, and all the cigarettes were 2 PACKS for $15.  Packs, not cartons.  This is before the sales tax, too, which I know is higher on tobaccy and booze!

All I gotta say is thank heavens I don't smoke!

Now alcohol, on the other hand......

Ha!  You'd be pissed as sh*t to see how prices are in Chicagoland!  I was in Walgreens the other night, and all the cigarettes were 2 PACKS for $15.  Packs, not cartons.  This is before the sales tax, too, which I know is higher on tobaccy and booze!

All I gotta say is thank heavens I don't smoke!

Now alcohol, on the other hand......


At those prices, might as buy reefer...

I mean, hypothetically, not encouraging any of you kids out there in TV land to break the law now!
:-X

I gotta agree with Mushroom here, things are so effed up right now, I don't buy S-CHIP selling point, and they're going to have to start chasing ciggie smugglers like coke traffickers.
::)

This is something that I always had a beef about-paying for health care with taxes from cigarettes. Ok, I understand the rational behind it and it is supposed to be a deterrent to get people to quit. However, if more & more people quit, then who will pay for health care? And as Mushroom stated, it will only lead to more black market smokes-not good.


As for quitting, it is not an easy thing. I know first hand. I quit 18 months ago and I am only 1 puff from going back. It still calls me and I struggle with it everyday. I wish people would understand that just so say, "Oh people should just quit smoking" that it is so much easier said than done. There was a time when money was very tight. I would hardly have any food in the house but I always had cigs. Priorities-and cigs were more important to me than food was.




Cat

I had to buy my parents cigarettes before April 1st.

It looks like they're making the smokers the April Fools! (And no, I don't smoke. I get enough 2nd and 3rd hand smoke)!

This tabakky tax thing is an absolute dream for a flaming, card-carrying, latte-drinking, import-driving, tofu-eating liberal:


Gives them a chance to demonize evil tobacco users yet one more time.
Allows them to socialize medicine, and put the bill onto those miscreant tobacco users.


It's a win-win.  A real work of art.

Now... if we can only figure out how to put a tax on ciggy butts that are strewn about the highway then we'd have it all...

This tabakky tax thing is an absolute dream for a flaming, card-carrying, latte-drinking, import-driving, tofu-eating liberal:


Gives them a chance to demonize evil tobacco users yet one more time.
Allows them to socialize medicine, and put the bill onto those miscreant tobacco users.


It's a win-win.  A real work of art.

Now... if we can only figure out how to put a tax on ciggy butts that are strewn about the highway then we'd have it all...


You mean the ones that still live in their parents basement?

The A.M.A. and quite a few Insurance companies in both health and life insurance demonize tobacco users.  Doctors for obvious reasons.  Insurers because the effects of long term tobacco use of the people they cover cuts into their profit.  The want to insure healthy people not take risks at losing money.

Socialized medicine?  What the heck do you think medicare and medicaid is.  Socialized medicine is harder to do on a national scale then you realize.  So I don't buy the socialized medicine scare tactic.

You mean the ones that still live in their parents basement?

The A.M.A. and quite a few Insurance companies in both health and life insurance demonize tobacco users.  Doctors for obvious reasons.  Insurers because the effects of long term tobacco use of the people they cover cuts into their profit.  The want to insure healthy people not take risks at losing money.

Socialized medicine?  What the heck do you think medicare and medicaid is.  Socialized medicine is harder to do on a national scale then you realize.  So I don't buy the socialized medicine scare tactic.


Like I said...

Like I said...


Guess it's a bad time to tell you I smoke huh? :-\\

This tabakky tax thing is an absolute dream for a flaming, card-carrying, latte-drinking, import-driving, tofu-eating liberal



My friend, I live among them, and you would be shocked--SHOCKED--to see how many of them smoke!  Mind you, they do it outdoors, even at their own homes, and they're always on about quitting, but they never quite get around to it!
http://www.inthe00s.com/smile/01/bandit.gif

And I don't know what cards you're referring to them carrying...but they're probably the same ones you carry--Visa/Mastercard.
::)

Allows them to socialize medicine, and put the bill onto those miscreant tobacco users.


And that is really a loose-loose situation.

According to most estimates, it will cost over $14 billion just to cover those currently uninsured.  And that is a far cry from "universal health care".

And with an estimated 43 million smokers, that comes to roughly $325 per smoker per year.  And if more people quit smoking, then you have to raise taxes even more to make up the deficit.

Of course, more people will simply find other ways to get around the tax.  Those near borders will make increasing use of Duty Free stores.  And of course those that are, were, or have friends-family in the military.  With our smokes being tax free already, it makes them increasingly appealing.

And of course the black market.  In most areas of LA it is not hard to find "under the counter" smokes.  And there is a flourishing trade in counterfeit tax stamps as well.  I remember a store up the road when I was in LA getting busted with them, something like $10,000 worth of them in fact.

http://www.caltax.org/member/digest/june2001/jun01-08.htm

Of course, you may have some of the drug cartels trading in their pot and meth for tobacco smuggling.  Then the only penalties you are likely to face are tax evasion.

Of course, you may have some of the drug cartels trading in their pot and meth for tobacco smuggling.  Then the only penalties you are likely to face are tax evasion.


I agree.  If they make purchasing tobacco cost prohibitive, people will turn to the black market.  I hate to contradict Superman, but crime does pay.  It's risky and generally immoral, but it pays.  If the government carves out a niche black market tobacco, there are plenty of criminals who will fill that niche.

The best anti-smoking strategy has been the gradual one.  Far fewer Americans smoke today than when I was born four decades ago.  I remember when you could smoke in shopping malls and movie theaters and nobody thought anything of it.  Parents blazed up in cars with a raft of kids in the back seat.  The odor of cigarette smoke in a family home was Norman Rockwell normal.  Nobody got asked to take it outside unless you were in a houseful of California health nuts!

The culture has indeed changed.  Smokers grumbled quite a bit as states levied restriction after restriction against smoking in public buildings and conveyances, but everybody adjusted to it and complied--even if grudgingly.  I thought there would be a revolution when towns started banning smoking in bars.  Bars?  You can't ban smoking in bars; that's insane!  But it happened.  Now I can destroy my liver in fresh air.  My friends who smoke say, "Wanna go smoke?," and they step out to the patio.  The pubs are not empty for the no smoking policies.

It's not universal, but now even smokers don't smoke inside their own homes.  They step outside.  They don't want their children to watch them smoke.  They don't want their homes to smell like smoke.

And yes, far more smokers than ever are cutting down and quitting.  I think the cultural shift over the past twenty years has done a lot to encourage smoking cessation and discourage young people from starting in the first place.  This is the road we should continue to follow.

Let's fund SCHIP for the sake of funding SCHIP and eschew this bogus sin tax game. 

Don't cry for the tobacco companies.  There's always India and China!
::)

I sometimes wish the tobacco industry would say "no you shut up" and pull out of the American market.  They don't need this high-tax, high-regulation, smoking bans everywhere country.  Exports to Asia and Africa are where the money is.

Every time the government needs more money, they go back to that evil legal product.  They got a good thing going.

Just a week ago, one pack of cigarettes was $2.50.  Now it's over five dollars.  The cheap off-brand cigarettes, which used to be $0.99, now are $2.60.  "Change we can believe in?"

I sometimes wish the tobacco industry would say "no you shut up" and pull out of the American market.  They don't need this high-tax, high-regulation, smoking bans everywhere country.  Exports to Asia and Africa are where the money is.

Every time the government needs more money, they go back to that evil legal product.  They got a good thing going.

Just a week ago, one pack of cigarettes was $2.50.  Now it's over five dollars.  The cheap off-brand cigarettes, which used to be $0.99, now are $2.60.  "Change we can believe in?"


If you can believe it, taxes are even worse on cigs in Europe.  I'm surprised anyone can afford them over there.

Also, in Dublin, they've banned smoking from all bars.  Crazy, eh?

I sometimes wish the tobacco industry would say "no you shut up" and pull out of the American market.  They don't need this high-tax, high-regulation, smoking bans everywhere country.  Exports to Asia and Africa are where the money is.
Yeah, Africa, that's the ticket!  Long before an African can die of lung cancer, something else will get him!

Every time the government needs more money, they go back to that evil legal product.  They got a good thing going.
If it's so evil, the government shouldn't garner revenue from it.  The should tax apples and zucchini instead!

Just a week ago, one pack of cigarettes was $2.50.  Now it's over five dollars.  The cheap off-brand cigarettes, which used to be $0.99, now are $2.60.  "Change we can believe in?"


I believe that's 40 cents change out of $3.00?
???