Tobacco Taxes By State January 2014

[gravel]

I saw this shared over at CPS and found it interesting.

PDF here:
http://www.taxadmin.org/fta/rate/otp.pdf

 

[Bluefisher]

Yes! Washington State is the, uh, winner?   

 

[fsu92john]

Ugh. That 85% in Florida translates to about $20 for a 50-gram tin.

 

[Puff Daddy]

No Pennsylvania?

 

[PlateauGuy]

Washington, what can I say? We love are taxes, and then wonder why people move away.  

 

[Thomas Tkach]

YAY for my home state, SC!

 

[KevinM]

If I read correctly, this is good for Smoking Pipes (SC) but fairly terrible for Cup O' Joes, (NY), VT Pipes, and 4noggins (VT).

All of the above are legal, established businesses catering to adults. Why, pray tell, would the government feel it a good idea to put potentially ruinous burdens on three of the four? (I'm just picking the ones I've done business with.)

As I've said before, once or twice, the model of government looks more and more like the model of public schools. Inmates are completely free to do anything that benefits the administration.

 

[Thomas Tkach]

I'm guessing that's mostly cigarette taxes, unless indicating otherwise. SP would be killing those guys if they had to eat that kind of tax burden, but they're obviously still competitive.

 

[KevinM]

I dunno, I noticed the heading, "Other Tobacco Products" and the language in the fine print at the end. Based on that, I interpret the chart as applying to tobacco products other than cigarettes --- i.e., pipe tobak, snuff, stogies and little cigars.

Pick your fav pipe tobacco and check the difference in buying a pound between Cup o' Joes (NY) and Smoking Pipes (SC). It's one thing to say a price difference is decided by a business' management, quite another to say that the difference reflects the arbitrary choices of pols who choose to inflate their own cash pool by putting burdens on law-abiding businesses in their states. Thanks for your service, ladies and gents of the legislatures.

 

[fsu92john]

I dunno, I noticed the heading, "Other Tobacco Products" and the language in the fine print at the end. Based on that, I interpret the chart as applying to tobacco products other than cigarettes --- i.e., pipe tobak, snuff, stogies and little cigars.

The 85% for Florida definitely includes pipe tobacco. There's no state tax here on cigars. I have a local B&M that carries a decent selection of tins, but they are about twice what one would pay at any of the online retailers because of the state tax.

 

[Aristokles]

No Pennsylvania?

Not yet, but we're holding our breath here. All the B&Ms I know say they don't think we can last much longer.