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Cigarette tax hike good for everyone
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Between working longer hours, paying more bills and getting fewer paychecks, some reach for a cigarette to take a break. But during an economic crisis where cigarettes may be needed the most, they’re becoming more expensive due to federal and state tax increases, and rightfully so.
Last year in
In a time of economic crisis, rather than taxing income more and taking money away from people who can be use the money for necessities like food, taxing discretionary goods like cigarettes and alcohol is beneficial because it deters people from an unhealthy habit while still allowing smokers to enjoy their inconvenience to the state, though for a price.
Some may retort, “Why should smokers be singled out and punished because of the economic situation?”
Because the only gain of smoking a cigarette is a brief buzz or the continuation of an unhealthy addiction, smokers have to bear a financial burden to continue hedonistic habits. The same would apply for alcohol and other indulgent behaviors. To say this is not patronizing or lofty but realistic because when economic crisis is affecting everyone in some way, sacrifices need to be made and cigarette smoking is simply one of the least necessary habits.
Comparatively, the possible cigarette tax increase would make
The tax on alcohol, gas and income is the same way. Each state has duly created its own unique conception of what is allowed to be taxed and in what capacity. The tax of a gallon of spirits ranges from $2 dollars per gallon in one state to $20 dollars in another, making the further polarization of the cigarette tax something more reasonable.
The proposed cigarette tax increase including the federal increase of $3.02 would make an average pack of cigarettes in Wisconsin $5.02, with just over 60 percent of retail price going to taxes.
In
Taxing smokers has become a very successful economic move for many governments, including Wisconsin. Last year’s tax increase brought a boon of $543.2 million to Wisconsin, according to a Wisconsin State Journal article. There are also indirect benefits of taxing cigarettes, like the vast healthcare costs directly tied with cigarette smoking that would be eliminated. A University of Michigan-Ann Arbor study attributes a conservative six to eight percent of health care costs as directly resulting from the smoking of cigarettes. According to anti-smoking campaigners, fewer cigarettes means an estimated $480 million saved in smoking-related health care costs because each smoker accrues something like 5,000 dollars in medical costs each year.
This is a ton of money, enough to solve a lot of problems for the state. Some people may see healthcare costs resulting from smoking a huge profit for the health care industry—one of the nation’s greatest—making widespread cigarette smoking a source of profit. However, it would be insensitive for the state to be dissuaded from providing a disincentive to smoking, keeping us sick, to keep the health care industry thriving.
A Wisconsin State Journal article reports that advocates of the bill estimate that the proposed tax increase will help 10 percent of smokers quit smoking. Last year the number of cigarettes sold in Wisconsin dropped by almost 18 percent, according to the Legislature’s budget office.
If increasing the price of cigarettes means that less people are getting their fix, that’s okay. Cigarettes have such negligible benefits for the smoker in comparison to the detriments they create for the people around them and the state, let alone for themselves. If smokers feel that a tax increase is unfair, they have to work a little harder to pay for their fix and realize their indulgence is self-serving when people should have to help serve each other.
Patrick Johnson (prjohnson@wisc.edu) is a Freshman majoring in Journalism and English
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Smoking is a smelly, nasty addiction that has no redeeming feature.
The problem will be boot-legging
Boot-legging? Try circumvention of taxes. To get around this, tobacco shops are selling ingredients separately: cigarettes are being taxed, but there’s no extra tax on tobacco + papers + filters, even as a package buy.
You know, I guess we should tax condoms and birth control highly, as well. It’s a modest proposal. I mean THINK about it:
1) Almost EVERYONE has sex, and alot of people use contraceptives. Think about all the MONEY you could make for the state!
2) taxing discretionary goods like condoms is beneficial because it deters people from an unhealthy habit (hello STIs (condoms don’t prevent ALL STIs), unwanted pregnancies (breakage!), not to mention the moral DEGRADATION!), while still allowing the sexed masses to enjoy their inconvenience to the state, though for a price.
3) Because the only gain of sex is a brief buzz or the continuation of an unhealthy addiction, sexers have to bear a financial burden to continue hedonistic habits.
An tax hike on cigarettes is not going to deter smokers from smoking. I used to smoke and at home I would pay about 4 bucks for a pack and up here they cost about 5 bucks a pack, that didn’t stop me from smoking. I shelled out the extra dollar for a pack so I highly doubt it’s going to have a huge effect on the health of the country. And if it is really about governing the health of people, which by the way is none of the governments business provided it doesn’t hurt anyone else, why don’t we start taxing fat people for the few thousand extra calories of food they eat a day? Certainly obesity is a much bigger health concern than smoking.
How very generous of you to sacrifice somebody else’s habit! I’m sure all smokers will thank you in the end! I think you should continue to aid us all in helping us jettison habits you think are unacceptable. I’m sure everyone would really appreciate it!
By the way, to the same end, I think we should tax bad opinion columns! Think of all the money the state would get!
Only poor people, immigrants, and blacks smoke so really this is a tax on bottom rung of society. Maybe there should be a tax for not smoking
Smokers end up spending less money on healthcare. Sure they’re more likely to get diseases, but they also die a hell of a lot earlier than most people. Not having to take care of them for those few extra years, more than makes up for any extra costs of caring for them while their health deteriorates.
I’ve got an idea: A junk food tax. Think about it, we could tax every meal that someone purchases that may potentially cause them health problems. Think about all those fat fuckers just sucking down junk food at McDonalds.
Everyone knows they just wind up clogging up their arteries, eventually clogging up emergency rooms, costing the state untold millons. If taxing their discretionary junk food eating habit will help some of them drop some pounds off their flabby asses, I say go for it. We could rake in billions!
Social Security and Medicare would be saved if all tobacco taxes were eliminated and smoking was encouraged for everyone, anywhere. Starting in grade school would be best.
Combine this with government rationed health care and people would die much sooner!
BAH!
food is nourishment; cigarettes are not.
If you want to call McDonald’s nourishment that is your call. I’m going to respectfully disagree.
Regardless, I think we can at least agree that our dietary choices and obesity represents a far greater cost in terms of health care, productivity, man hours lost, etc. than smoking ever possibly could. The TYPES of foods we consume are in fact choices that we make.
A junk food tax makes as much or even more sense than a cigarette tax. If you don’t agree with this, its probably for two reasons:
1) You don’t smoke
and
2) You like making the choice of eating junk food
It would appear that a tax that is charged to only 35% of the people would be unfair. Why not tax toothpaste, which would be 95% of the people. The ideal of taxing only a small part of the people in a democratic government does not fit the constitutional ideal that all are treated equal.
I live on $30,000 of income from social security and my pension, plus my savings. I wish to thank you President Obama and the 44 sponsors of H.R.2 for raising my federal taxes by $1,500 per year. Increasing a tax by 2185%, especially a tax that will fall almost entirely on the lower middle class and the poor, appears to be a direct contradiction of your campaign promises.
Who do you think rolls their own cigarettes? The guy making $200,000/year or the guy living on a fixed income that got addicted to cigarettes 35 years ago, when they were 35 cents a pack.
My life current expectancy is 77 years. The same as it would be if I did not smoked but drank 9 beers a week or had three accidents or violations in the last 3 years, or gained 90 pounds or had high blood pressure controlled by medication. If I had never smoked my life expectancy would be 82.
Four of my close relatives experienced the onset of dementia at 78. So not only will my smoking save me and my loved ones 5 years being a vegetable in a nursing home but it will save the taxpayer’s $300,000 in nursing home costs plus 5 years of social security payments.
I think that will more than offset any additional costs that my smoking has caused the public. But if you really feel the need to punish people for their sins, lets be fair and tax the alcoholics, the reckless drivers, the obese and salt producers (high blood pressure) to the same degree.
I.E A $4 tax on a bottle of beer. A $1000 tax on Automobile Insurance A $7 tax on a Big Mac And A $7 tax on a pound of table salt.
A cash-strapped (morally superior, of course) politition’s checklist:
Single out minority loathed by society… check Find what they need most just to get through the day… cigarettes Say it’s for their own good so they can’t fight back… check TAX THE SHIT OUT OF THEM!!!
Seems fair to me.
i wish i could get a tax break cause i am at the poverty level on the income latter. but no i am paying for some one who rides the system out for all its worth and then they tax something as retarded as smokes. come on people we have how many illegals in this country working for cash and not paying taxes so why if the dems. want to nationalize them so bad for the votes why dont we make them shell 7500 bucks for wanting to be a legal member of society that would elminate a lot of the budget issues that this messed country is having under the a new socialist regime
and it makes for more illegal actions and more criminals as the goverment abuses the minority groups even more. I hate this country for being such ans a$$ about how they treat the people, hurt the minority toi help a majority, makes a heck of a lot of sense to me :(
Time ot get the heck out of this imature contry and go to some place that at least CARES ABOUT ITS PEOPLE, NOT THEIR MONEY.
Maybe it is time to go out and have 9 kids and not have any insurance, JUST so I can collect back some of the outragous taxes I have paid for it.