Posts Tagged ‘cigarettes’

South Carolina Takes Aim

February 8th 2010 Posted at Tobacco Politics
2 Comments

This past Sunday, The Charleston Post and Courier newspaper wrote an editorial saying that the state of South Carolina should increase its taxes on cigarette tobacco from 7 cents to more than  171 percent, or $1.27 per pack.

The newspaper said the money generated from the increased tax on the people who can least afford to be taxed would be used to pay  for health care. The newspaper says that by raising the taxes, the state gains new revenue and at the same time reduces the number of people smoking.

The latter claim is fraudulent. There is absolutely no scientific evidence that hiking taxes on cigarettes reduces the numbers of smokers. Older smokers may retire their cigarettes, but there are many more young people who will pay the tax to fill the gap. You never hear about how many are beginning smokers, compared to those who quit because they can no longer afford to smoke.

So, what the newspaper is saying is that it is all right to balance the health care books on the backs of smokers, especially those smokers who can no longer afford to pay higher taxes. The taxes create astounding problems for the poor, and not just in the pocketbook. Instead of quitting, they resort to black market sources. The ripple effect of higher crime and family abuse also rises.

And it is simply wrong for states and their bum politicians to punish smokers in social engineering when they are too mealy mouthed and weak kneed to face the real problem confronting states and the nation: how to balance runaway budgets because the politicians helped load the getaway cars with tons of tax money. And we know who was driving the cars: bankers, Wall Street investors, and hedge fund operatives. I call these folks financial terrorists and insurgents.

If this idiocy doesn’t stop, you won’t be able to sit in your own home and smoke.

Here is where you can find the Post and Courier. Read it for yourself and decide what your next move is.

Cigarette Smuggling on Increase

February 8th 2010 Posted at Tobacco Politics
3 Comments

You knew it had to happen. . . . again. . . . and again. . . .and again.

You tax a product to death, like tobacco, and the bad guys will find a way to make a profit from it. Take cigarette smuggling. Some of the money, the Associated Press says, is getting to Islamic terrorists.

In other words, your hard earned tax dollars are going to the bad guys, so they can heist cigarettes from North Carolina, take them to Michigan and sell them to the guys who want to do the U.S. harm.

Yeah, that makes sense.

Read and heed.

By GARY D. ROBERTSON
Associated Press Writer

RALEIGH, N.C. — For years, buying low-tax North Carolina cigarettes and selling them on the black market in a high-tax state up north has been an easy way to make big money for criminal enterprises.

Load up a van of Camels or Marlboros and reap a $100,000 profit to sell them if the destination is New York City, which has a $1.50-per-pack excise tax in addition to the $2.75 state cigarette tax.

“The cigarette tax evasion stampede is out of control,” said Jim Calvin, president of the New York Association of Convenience Stores. More than half of cigarettes purchased in his state are bought without paying state or local taxes, largely because of out-of-state smuggling and Internet sales.

Catching people with North Carolina contraband is difficult because it’s one of three states that don’t require tax stamps affixed on every pack being sold.

Interest in restoring the stamps after a 16-year hiatus has been revived as a way to deter smuggling from North Carolina – and in an ironic change – into North Carolina. The state now may be the target for cheaper cigarettes from South Carolina, which has a 7-cent-per pack tax and doesn’t use stamps. North Carolina’s 45-cent tax has grown nine fold since 2005, creating a cross-border difference of $3.80 per carton.

“We’ve only been at a tax disadvantage since the tax went up in the past couple of years,” said Gary Harris with the North Carolina Petroleum and Convenience Marketers Association.

Stamps provide evidence the wholesaler has paid the state tax before packs are shipped to retailers. Black-market vendors have a harder time selling stamped packs because Read More…