President Barack Obama signed the new SCHIP bill into law on February 4, creating a massive new tax on all tobacco products.
RYO Revolution has a handy table, showing the rate of increase. Cigarette smokers will be paying an extra $0.62/pack, an increase of over 150% of the existing tax. Roll-your-own and cigarillo smokers will see the biggest increase, over 2000% increase in the existing tax.
Unfortunately, while well-meaning, Congress created a horrible tax policy. The idea that raising taxes on tobacco will deter smoking doesn’t appear to be validated by recent reality, and there are much better ways to raise revenue through taxation that don’t punish adults’ free choice as to what we can put in our bodies, or place an inordinate burden on the poor and working classes.
This Tax Foundation article gives more detailed information, including showing how we could raise $33 billion for children’s health care through a small federal income tax that would have 2% of the cost of a cigarette tax for the lowest 20% of America.
3 Responses
I finally decided to write a comment on your blog. I just wanted to say good job. I really enjoy reading your posts.
Posted on March 9th, 2009 at 10:00 pm
Man I really hit the “nail on the head” deciding to quit when I did.
Posted on March 14th, 2009 at 10:25 pm
[...] take out ballooning adjustable-rate mortgages, pay more in “sin taxes” on things like tobacco and alcohol, and are less likely to be able to acquire health care or higher education at [...]
Posted on April 3rd, 2009 at 9:06 pm
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