It’s reported Premier Alison Redford would have the support of most Albertans if she raises tobacco taxes, according to a new poll. An online survey by Ipsos Reid, which questioned 809 Albertans between Dec. 20 and 26, found 70 per cent of respondents support a $2-per-pack tax hike on cigarette prices if the proceeds are used to reduce tobacco use and promote healthy living, says the Herald. Not answered, of course, is what would the result be if the question was: Do you support a $2-per-pack tax increase on cigarettes if the cash is wasted?

Clearly the government wouldn’t use the extra millions of dollars a year trying to wean smokers off their guilty indulgence. The money would be collected and burned up just like any other dollar. Just like gas taxes aren’t spent on promoting public transit and liquor taxes aren’t spent on discouraging people from enjoying a drink after work, cigarette taxes are simply a source of revenue — a necessary one to a large extent. God help us if people stop smoking. Where would the lost revenue come from? So don’t expect the Alberta government to pump every dollar it gets from higher cigarette taxes into stop-smoking initiatives, as noble an initiative as it would be.

The government needs the money, of course. It’s got all sorts of services to provide and must look after dedicated public servants, such as the city’s own Lindsay Blackett. He’ll have spent a full four years doing the bidding of voters, and after choosing not to seek re-election this spring, he’ll receive just $183,000 as a transition allowance. When you know where the money is going, you don’t mind paying higher taxes.

Two new initiative petitions have met state standards for circulation in Missouri. One relates to taxation on cigarettes and tobacco products; the other relates to a municipal police force (see ballot language below). Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan says before either measure can reach the statewide ballot in November 2012, they each need the signatures from registered voters equal to 5-percent of the total votes cast in the 2008 governor’s election from six of the state’s nine congressional districts.

The signatures are due to the Secretary of State’s Office by 5 p.m. on May 6, 2012.

The ballot title for the petition relating to taxation on cigarettes and other tobacco products reads:

Shall Missouri law be amended to: create the Health and Education Trust Fund with proceeds of a tax of $0.0365 per cigarette and 25% of the manufacturer’s invoice price for roll-your-own tobacco and 15% for other tobacco products; use Fund proceeds to reduce and prevent tobacco use and for elementary, secondary, college, and university public school funding; and increase the amount that certain tobacco product manufacturers must maintain in their escrow accounts, to pay judgments or settlements, before any funds in escrow can be refunded to the tobacco product manufacturer and create bonding requirements for these manufacturers?

Estimated additional revenue to state government from this proposal is $283 million to $423 million annually with limited estimated implementation costs or savings. The revenue will fund only programs and services allowed by the proposal. The fiscal impact to local governmental entities is unknown.

The petition, which would amend Chapters 149 and 196 of the Missouri Revised Statutes, was submitted by Mr. Robert Hess, Husch Blackwell, LLP, 235 E. High St., PO Box 1251, Jefferson City, MO 65102-1251.

The ballot title for the petition relating to a municipal police force reads:

Shall Missouri law be amended to:
allow any city not within a county (the City of St. Louis) the option of transferring certain obligations and control of the city’s police force from the board of police commissioners currently appointed by the governor to the city and establishing a municipal police force;
establish certain procedures and requirements for governing such a municipal police force including residency, rank, salary, benefits, insurance, and pension; and
prohibit retaliation against any employee of such municipal police force who reports conduct believed to be illegal to a superior, government agency, or the press?

State governmental entities estimated savings will eventually be up to $500,000 annually. Local governmental entities estimated annual potential savings of $3.5 million; however, consolidation decisions with an unknown outcome may result in the savings being more or less than estimated.

If you’re a smoker, you know it is a costly habit in Florida. Some lawmakers are pushing to make the high cost even higher, citing a goal of cutting down on teen smoking. Not many people will disagree teen smoking is a problem that needs to be dealt with. A higher tax could even encourage adult smokers to knock the habit, but for those who won’t quit, it could be become quite the burden. At Cig-O-Rama in Tallahassee, if you’re looking for a deal, all you’ve got to do is pick out your tobacco and hit a button.

At the bottom of the machine, machine-rolled cigarettes cost you half the price of what you would pay for a carton of brand name smokes.

The man who owns the machine, Greg Haskins, said business is booming and it could get even busier if new taxes raise the price of cigarettes.

The new tax bill would double Florida’s cigarette tax. Haskins predicts the move would send more value-conscious customers his way.

Though he will get more business, Haskins feels the move would still accomplish its main goal of making it tougher for teens to smoke.

“I think it’ll be a better incentive for the young adolescents to try to stop that, because, you know, it’s going to be more money for them and it’ll be harder to find it,” Haskins said.

Statewide, one-fifth fewer high schoolers are lighting up.

When lawmakers hiked the tax over two years ago, Florida began raking in a billion dollars more a year.

Raising that kind of money in this economy is also a big selling point for the bill, but there is no guarantee the money jar will fill again.

If the tax were to climb packs of cigarettes to $2.34, many smokers could find they couldn’t keep their habit going.

If they stop paying for the packages, the extra money won’t roll into the money jar. But, there are folks like Ann Ladato who have been smoking for 30 years or more.

“If I had to buy regular cigarettes at that price, I’d have to leave town to buy them,” Ladato said. “[I'll] go to Georgia, or buy them when I go home for a visit in Louisiana.”

The bill faces a high hurdle.

The Capitol’s majority Republicans, along with Governor Rick Scott, have made it clear they’re opposed to any and all new taxes.

Even though they voted overwhelmingly to hike cigarette taxes in 2009.

The bills has been dubbed the ‘Youth Smoke Prevention Act’ and is sponsored by South Florida Democratic State Rep. Jim Waldman.

Two Rochester men were charged Saturday in Genesee County with illegal possession of untaxed cigarettes. About 2:45 p.m., the Genesee County emergency dispatch center received a report of two men heading south on Route 77 with a large amount of untaxed cigarettes. Their car was stopped in Pembroke and Genesee County Sheriff’s deputies allegedly found 60 cartons of untaxed cigarettes in the car.

Devontre Levar Harvey, 27, of Garfield Street, and Holsey Wedlow, 59, of South Avenue, were arrested.

Both men are due in Pembroke Town County on Dec. 6.

The number of people giving up the habit jumped 70 per cent when federal taxes last forced up the price of cigarettes, a study published today in the Medical Journal of Australia shows. However, the motivation to give up appears short-lived. Four months after the average cost of a pack of 30 leapt $2.20 last year, quitting rates slipped back to normal. Researchers used data from the Cancer Institute’s continuous health survey of adults in NSW to track smoker “quitting activity”.

It found 22 per cent of 1604 smokers quit in May last year – after the 25 per cent hike in tobacco taxes.

This compared with 13 per cent in April last year (immediately before the tax rise) and 12 per cent a year earlier.
“Quitting activity increased substantially in the months immediately after the 2010 tax increase, suggesting a direct link between price increase and smoking cessation,” the report said.

Little cigars, which are taking increasing space on area tobacco-shop shelves, are shaped and smoked just like cigarettes. But because New Jersey taxes them differently, they cost nearly one-third the price. Over the past several years, increased state and federal taxes have helped turn some smokers on to less-taxed tobacco products, local shop owners and anti-smoking groups say. New Jersey has a $2.70 tax per cigarette pack, and the federal government has a $1.01 excise tax it enacted two years ago.

That sixth-highest cigarette tax in the country may entice more smokers to quit or prevent others from starting, said Karen Blumenfeld, executive director of Global Advisors on Smokefree Policy, a New Jersey-based anti-smoking group. But inconsistencies in taxes among various tobacco products cause some smokers to simply switch products, she said.
“We are lagging, as are many other states, with the other types of tobacco products. The industry has caught on to the fact that there’s this loophole with regard to other smoked tobacco products, and they’re cheaper,” said Blumenfeld, who wants a uniform pricing that would tax all tobacco products as cigarettes.
New Jersey collected nearly $742 million in cigarette taxes last year. That was a 4 percent drop, or $33.1 million less, compared to 2008, state Treasury Department data show.
Yet revenue from other tobacco products — such as cigars, little cigars, chewing tobacco, pipe tobacco, and roll-your-own — shot up 26 percent in that time, generating $3.7 million more from lower tax rates.
The state has a wholesale tax on these products that is 30 percent of the price the wholesaler pays the manufacturer, Treasury spokesman Bill Quinn said.
“If I had to buy cigarettes for seven, eight dollars, I’d consider quitting,” said Dave Schubiger, 52, of Barnegat Township, who bought a 10-pack carton of little cigars for about $22. Had they been cigarettes, it would have cost him nearly $75.
“Price is a big thing; plus, I like them,” he said.
In New Jersey, little cigars in particular have been targeted by proposed legislation that seeks to tax them the same as cigarettes.
“The additional tax will make little cigars less appealing to current cigarette smokers seeking a cheaper alternative,” reads the proposed bill sponsored by state Sen. Paul Sarlo, D-Bergen, Essex, Passaic.
The Office of Legislative Services estimated in 2010 that the bill would increase tax revenue from $6 million to nearly $9 million. The office estimated more than 5 million packs of little cigars were sold in fiscal year 2010.
But rising taxes will not stop people from smoking, although future increases may hurt New Jersey businesses that are being undercut by other states that have lower tobacco taxes and, likewise, cheaper tobacco, said Jeff Melchiondo Sr., owner of Tobacco Road in Barnegat.
The tobacco shop Melchiondo runs with his son sells cigars, pipe tobacco, cigarettes, roll-your-own tobacco and little cigars.
“Whether cigarettes are selling for $2 a pack or $8, people will still smoke — that may put more weight on the roll-your-own market if that is not taxed any more. The little-cigar smoker may go back to roll-your-own instead,” he said.
Roll-your-own cigarettes have been popular, but that tobacco is taxed more heavily than pipe tobacco, which can be used instead. Roll-your-own tobacco has a federal tax of $1.55 per 1-ounce pouch. Pipe tobacco, on the other hand, has a federal tax of about 18 cents per 1-ounce pouch.
Nationally, nearly 3.6 billion fewer cigarettes were manufactured from January to July than last year, a 2 percent drop, data from the federal Department of Treasury’s Alcohol and Tobacco Tax Bureau show.
Meanwhile, pipe-tobacco manufacturing picked up substantially — by about 5.7 million pounds, or about 44 percent.
Bob Tyjewski, manager at Smoker’s Haven in Galloway Township, has seen roll-your-own-cigarette sales double in the past few years. The shop keeps roll-your-own tobacco and pipe tobacco together on a shelf.
“Going to roll-your-own is an economic move, not because you got tired of what your Marlboro tastes like. It’s a matter of nickels and dimes,” he said.
Tyjewski said he is losing business to other states. New Jersey is behind only New York, Hawaii, Connecticut, Washington, and Rhode Island in the highest cigarette taxes.
Pennsylvania and Delaware’s cigarette tax is $1.60 a pack.
Tyjewski has even seen the reverse — he has regular New York clients heading to Atlantic City who buy cartons of cigarettes. New York’s cigarette tax is the highest in the nation, at $4.35 per pack. They save $16.50 in state taxes per carton.
“The government, they don’t want you to smoke, but you can bet they spent that tax money,” he said.
Absecon resident Bharat Patel, manager of Northfield News and Tobacco in Northfield, said little cigars and roll-your-own have increased significantly in the past few years due primarily to the price of cigarettes.
In New Jersey, about 14 percent of the adult population — about 1 million people — are smokers, data from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show. The national median is about 18 percent.
At Tobacco Road, little cigars come in two brands: Cheyenne and 1839. They come in full flavor, light, menthol, cherry, peach and others.
Little cigars are more profitable for Tobacco Road to sell than cigarettes which, unlike little cigars, are available nearly everywhere and have low profit margins in order to compete, Melchiondo said.
Now, the shop sells as many packs of little cigars as they do cigarettes, he said.
“People will still buy them as long as they’re reasonable enough. If these go up to 3 or 4 dollars a pack, then they’ll go back to buying the roll-your-own stuff, probably,” he said “As long as there are savings involved, I think a market will still be there.”

Cigarette smoking is the leading cause of cancer in California. One out of every four residents in California die from cancer each year. Despite continuance of medical treatments and prevention, cigarette smoking remains to be a burden on the health care system. Studies show that the tax will save over 104,000 California residents from smoking-related deaths. It will also prevent more than 200,000 kids from ever becoming addicted to cigarettes when they become adults (CCRA).

The purpose of this measure is to not only increase the tax on cigarettes but to establish the California Cancer Research and Life Sciences Innovation Trust Fund. A nine-member “Cancer Research Citizens Oversight Committee” will oversee this organization.

The panel will consist of chancellors from the campuses of UC San Francisco, UC Santa Barbara and UC Berkeley, three of the directors for the National Institute of Health (NIH) Cancer Centers, one cardiovascular physician from an academic medical center and two tobacco-related illness advocates (UC). Within this fund, there are five sections where the tax revenues will be deposited. Sixty percent ($468 million) will be spent on cancer and tobacco-related disease research; 15 percent ($117 million) will pay for facilities and equipment to support research; 20 percent ($156 million) will fund smoking cessation and tobacco use prevention; 3 percent ($23 million) will help police stop tobacco smuggling and enforce tobacco laws and no more than 2 percent on administrative costs (CCRA).

According to the UC Newsroom, a cumulative of $855 million should result from the tax during the first year. The proposition entails that the money will be dispersed into “medical research into cancers and heart disease, smoking education programs and tobacco law enforcements” (CCRA). In addition to the $855 million given to tobacco-related research and programs, already existing programs for health, natural and research will be increased by $45 million and state and local sales taxes will be raised to $32 million annually. Another study by University of California estimates that California could save up to $28.2 billion in health care costs between 2012 and 2016.

Although Perata has accumulated enough signatures for the ballot to qualify on the next general election, he recognizes that “getting the signatures was really the easy part” and that “[he’s] going to be in a big fight” against the tobacco industry (All Business). The tobacco industry has already invested in $2 million to overturn the legislation. This fact was taken from the filed reports to the California Secretary of State. In reference to the future battle from the tobacco industry, “We know that Big Tobacco will spend gobs of cash opposing this campaign because they want to keep California cigarettes cheap in order to recruit new smokers,” Perata said. “But as this endorsement proves, Californians understand this initiative will make our state stronger, save lives, save billions of dollars in avoidable health care costs, and keep California as ‘THE’ place for groundbreaking medical research” (Business Law Daily).

Since 1998, the 87-cent excise tax on cigarette packs has remained unchanged. With the proposed $1.87 tax on cigarettes, the UC Regents anticipate that cigarette consumption be reduced. With this newly proposed tax, will cigarette smokers actually lessen how much they smoke? Will they find new ways to have their nicotine fixed? How much effort will the tobacco industry make to maintain their loyal consumers? Will they take an aggressive approach at all? All of these questions will be answered within the next year as the general election rolls in.

Although Seneca Indians are still prohibited from using the U.S. mail to ship tobacco products to customers, they will not have to pay out-of-state taxes of places to where those cigarettes are shipped. That is the result of a Tuesday ruling by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. “This is a positive decision from the appellate court … and how it affects Seneca Nation trade,” said Robert Odawi Porter, Seneca Nation of Indians president.

“No out-of-state tax collection is required on remote sales,” he said, adding the second circuit did not modify an earlier injunction made by U.S. District Court Judge Richard Arcara, stating the Seneca entrepreneurs need not be bound by federal Prevent All Cigarette Trafficking act provisions requiring Seneca retailers to comply with the tax, licensing and other laws of states to which they deliver cigarettes.

Senecas argued Congress overstepped in the PACT Act by requiring Seneca retailers comply with laws of states where their product was being bought, even though their businesses are not located in those states. On Tuesday, the Second Circuit agreed with the earlier ruling made by Arcara that the provision of the act requiring complying with other states’ laws and taxes could have devastating economic harm on Seneca retailers.

The court did affirm that Congress can prohibit the use of the U.S. Postal Service to mail cigarettes.

Seneca retailers may, however, ship product to buyers in other states without complying with other states’ requirements, all of which may be different from one another.

According to an Associated Press article, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals rejected government arguments that Arcara’s July 2010 order granting a preliminary injunction was an abuse of his judicial discretion.

Arcara stayed enforcement of certain provisions of the PACT Act that was signed into law by President Barack Obama, concluding a group of about 140 Seneca businesses was likely to win its legal challenge against them. Arcara refused to block other key provisions of the act, including one barring retailers from shipping cigarettes through the mail, which forced numerous Seneca businesses to close.

The Seneca Nation has not decided yet whether to appeal the remainder of the ruling, prohibiting its retailers to use the U.S. mail to ship product. The U.S. Attorney’s office did not comment about an appeal.

Brazil is considering raising taxes on cigarettes to partially compensate for a $16 billion package of measures announced yesterday to help manufacturers hurt by the real’s rally. “There are discussions about a tax increase on cigarettes,” Deputy Finance Minister Nelson Barbosa told reporters yesterday in Brasilia. He declined to elaborate. Levies on some goods may be raised to prevent a budget deficit of 2.19 percent of gross domestic product from widening after President Dilma Rousseff announced a 25 billion reais ($16 billion) tax cut over the next two years to boost local production.

Souza Cruz SA (CRUZ3), Brazil’s largest tobacco company, dropped to a three-month low yesterday after a government official who had asked not to be identified said the Finance Ministry may raise taxes on cigarettes. The official spoke before Barbosa’s comment.
Souza Cruz fell 2.8 percent to 17.74 reais at the close of Sao Paulo trading at 4:15 p.m. New York time, the lowest since May 4. The Brazilian unit of British American Tobacco Plc (BATS) earlier dropped as much as 3.8 percent.
“Taxes on cigarettes are still low in Brazil when compared to other countries,” Caue Pinheiro, an analyst at SLW Corretora in Sao Paulo, said in a telephone interview. “It’s reasonable to assume that taxes will eventually go up. Of course, that would be bad for Souza Cruz, as the company would probably increase prices to offset the higher taxes, which would affect sales.”
Spending Reduction
Barbosa said the government may cut spending to offset part of the tax cuts. The increase of a tax on consumer credit in April also raised tax collection, giving room to the government to offer tax breaks to exporters, he said.
Brazil doubled a tax on consumer loans on April 7 to slow demand and inflation.
The government also may take steps to curb vehicle imports in an effort to protect manufacturers from foreign competition, the government official who asked not to be identified said.
Brazil is also considering adjusting the terms of a 1 percent tax on derivatives to ensure that exporters hedging against currency losses aren’t hurt by it, said the official. The government created the tax last week to discourage bets against the U.S. dollar after the real hit a 12-year high.
An official at Souza Cruz who asked not to be identified due to internal policy said the company wouldn’t comment on the issue because a final decision hasn’t yet been made.