Tobacco Tax 101

[golfermd]

What we will probably see is the death spiral with taxes like they see in many urban areas. Higher taxes means higher costs of doing business so businesses eventually move to more tax friendly locales to reduce their operating costs. This lowers revenues. In order to again raise revenues they increase the tax rates, which drives more businesses away, causing lower employment, loss of tax reveneues, and higher municipal costs to absorb people displaced by businesses moving out. Am I missing something here? Politicians, gotta love 'em...

[Artyman1200]

Tax those evil smokers to fund the health insurance program for all those poor little children! Our government is such a freakin racket...

[BurnDownKing]

Just another bump in the road like rising gas prices or inflation of bread prices. It will all be ok in the end and in a year no one will remember what happened until the next rate increase happens. If you're going to quit smoking a cigar because of a tax rate increase and you can't afford it, you should probably be finding something you can afford to do. :)

I will do my part, however, and stock up before the tax hike kicks in. My cigar shop said we can buy as much as we want and he'd store it for us and figure out where to put it after the fact if we couldn't bring it all home, so at least he's helping us out in that aspect.

[sammis]

It's too bad my coolers are full, but I do have enough to last a few years

In a few years when tobacco use has declined enough that S-Chip doesn't have enough funding, they'll find another "evil industry" to tax to death.

[bigwhiteash]

If they could/would tax stupidity, all our problems would be solved!

[MasterCylinder]

If they could/would tax stupidity, all our problems would be solved!

Nah... politicians wouldn't want to tax themselves...

[Artyman1200]

Just another bump in the road like rising gas prices or inflation of bread prices. It will all be ok in the end and in a year no one will remember what happened until the next rate increase happens.

I view this tax increase by the federal government as slightly different than just simple inflation. Yeah, we'll probably soon forget about the increase as it's not catastrophic, but it doesn't mean we shouldn't be upset about it. This is the same government that owns a majority interest in AIG. It won't be long before it's illegal to bring American made cigars into Cuba...

[DeeDubya]

Uncle Sam's personality is changing.

Gimme All Your Money