Discount Cigarettes News
Aug 10th, 2007 - 11:28:27
Connecticut has increased its tax to $1.51 from 50 cents per pack in 2002. Since then, per capita consumption of cigarettes has fallen 37 percent. New Jersey has raised its tax to $2.40 from 80 cents in 2002. Smoking has dropped 35 percent. California raised its cigarette tax to 87 cents per pack in 1999 but hasn’t changed it since. Smoking is down 18 percent since the tax hike. By comparison, South Carolina has kept its lowest-in-the-nation cigarette tax at 7 cents since 1977. Cigarette consumption there has fallen 5 percent since 2000. Health experts and economists say raising the federal cigarette tax to $1 per pack may bring about one of the biggest one-time declines in smoking. “I expect a bigger drop than almost anything we’ve seen before,” said Frank Chaloupka, a University of Illinois economist who has studied the effect of taxes on smoking. He predicts that smoking will drop 6 percent if the 61-cent-per-pack tax hike is passed, taking the levy to $1 a pack from 39 cents. The Senate last week approved the increase as a way to pay for expanded government health care for children. The House has proposed a 45-cent increase. President Bush has threatened to veto the bill over the increased cost of the health program. Nationwide, the number of cigarettes smoked fell last year to 1,293 per capita from a peak of 2,095 per capita in 1976, according to ”The Tax Burden on Tobacco,” an annual industry report. Research shows that health concerns, tax hikes and higher retail prices all have played a role in the decline. Smoking falls 2.5 percent to 5 percent for every 10 percent increase in the price of cigarettes, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Thomas Briant, executive director of the National Association of Tobacco Outlets, agrees that consumption will fall about 6 percent if a $1 federal tax is imposed but says the high tax will have negative effects. State governments will suffer a sharp decline in revenue, and black-market sales and thefts will increase to avoid the draconian tax, he says. “Using taxes to legislate use of a legal product is not good public policy,” Briant said. State Sen. Mike Ellis, R-Neenah, said he thinks Doyle’s proposal will pass, but cautions about unintended side effects. “It will (pass), and that’s good,” he said. “We want people to stop smoking, but it will cause fiscal problems down the street,” Ellis said. Ellis said the proposed tax will bring in $506 million over two years, according to the Legislative Fiscal Bureau, but said it represents a decreasing revenue stream as people quit. “Nobody should cry because of lower consumption of a product that kills half the people who use it,” said Danny McGoldrick, vice president of research at the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. © Copyright 2006 by DiscountCigarettesBox.Com Top of Page |
