Massive smokeless tobacco tax increase

[Stubby]

Bill Text - 112th Congress (2011-2012) - THOMAS (Library of Congress)

(f) Tax Parity for Smokeless tobacco-
(1) IN GENERAL- Section 5701(e) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 is amended--
(A) in paragraph (1), by striking `$1.51' and inserting `$26.79';
(B) in paragraph (2), by striking `50.33 cents' and inserting `$10.72'; and
(C) by adding at the end the following:
`(3) SMOKELESS tobacco SOLD IN DISCRETE SINGLE-USE UNITS- On discrete single-use units, $100.50 per each 1,000 single-use units.'.
(2) DISCRETE SINGLE-USE UNIT- Section 5702(m) of such Code is amended--
(A) in paragraph (1), by striking `or chewing tobacco' and inserting `chewing tobacco, discrete single-use unit';
(B) in paragraphs (2) and (3), by inserting `that is not a discrete single-use unit' before the period i in each such paragraph; and
(C) by adding at the end the following:
`(4) DISCRETE SINGLE-USE UNIT- The term `discrete single-use unit' means any product containing tobacco that--
`(A) is intended or expected to be consumed without being combusted; and
`(B) is in the form of a lozenge, tablet, pill, pouch, dissolvable strip, or other discrete single-use or single-dose unit.'.
(3) OTHER TOBACCO PRODUCTS- Section 5701 of such Code is amended by adding at the end the following new subsection:
`(i) Other Tobacco Products- Any product not otherwise described under this section that has been determined to be a tobacco product by the Food and Drug Administration through its authorities under the Family Smoking Prevention and Control Act shall be taxed at a level of tax equivalent to the tax rate for cigarettes on an estimated per use basis as determined by the Secretary.'.

Besides smokeless tobacco the bill also includes a hugh tax increase for cigars and pipe tobacco along with a hugh increase in cigarette tax.

Notice also the last paragraph. I'll repeat it so you get the point

Other Tobacco Products- Any product not otherwise described under this section that has been determined to be a tobacco product by the Food and Drug Administration through its authorities under the Family Smoking Prevention and Control Act shall be taxed at a level of tax equivalent to the tax rate for cigarettes on an estimated per use basis as determined by the Secretary.'.

That could easily mean electronic cigarettes.

You can track the bill here

Edit: The title should read massive smokeless tobacco tax increase. They won't let me edit that.

 

[rothenbj]

I didn't see cigars, just small cigars. I guess they feel no need to increase the tax on the big boy tobacco of choice.

Anyway, it looks like it's time for a full frontal attack on the legislators rather than the local skirmishes. If not the alternative will be the continuation of raping the tobacco user to support every government issue. They are talking $12b the first year to $35b in 10 years in funding.

Kind of reminds me of John Cougar's song, "I fought the law and the law one".

 

[dmazyn]

The small cigar thing is coming from when the US banned flavored cigs and Djarum just repackaged the clove cigs as cigars.

 

[Stubby]

They didn't get cigars, I missed that. They hit every other tobacco product out there. Tax on roll your own tobacco would be doubled, and that was already increased by around 2500% in early 09. Pipe tobacco would increase from $2.8311 cents' to`$49.55'. Cigarette tax would be doubled. Smokeless tobacco tax would go from `$1.51' to `$26.79'. That would be per pound. Portioned smokeless would be would be about 10 cents a portion. That would be $2.40 for a can of Swedish snus in Federal taxes. And then there is the tax on e-cigs.

This would be a hugh blow to harm reduction.

 

[Uncle Willie]

Why should anything like this cause outrage when it's the same trend that's been ongoing for many years .. ??

 

[rothenbj]

There has got to be 25% of US adults using tobacco products. How do you get to these people and so they can get the message that enough is enough. People are up in arms about a couple cents being added to can of soda, but you can rape tobacco users and that's okay. Perhaps the message of "A Vote for the Tobacco tax is a Vote for your Unemployment!"

 

[Uncle Willie]

As long as the 20-25 percent that use tobacco products continue at that level or less, we will not be able to effectively stop any issue of this type .. it's as simple as that .. legislators are elected officials .. they listen when they feel the majority pressure ..

 

[rothenbj]

That's the spirit.

 

[LadyLynx]

Sounds like bootleg time to me.

 

[Vocalek]

There is a button on the page, "SPEAK UP AT POPVOX". I clicked that and went to a page where you can record a vote on how you feel. This site is also set up to send a message to your own legislators. It was easy to compose a message, create a POPVOX login, and then supply my information. The system automagically looks up your address information and determines who your Senators are. When you are finished, you can share your message. I posted mine on Facebook and sent a Tweet.

This was my message.

S. 1403 will place burdensome taxes on products that could save the lives of millions of smokers, as well as reduce health risks of bystanders. Switching from smoking to a modern smoke-free tobacco product such as low-nitrosamine snus, dissolvable orbs, or electronic cigarettes can reduce a smoker's health risks by up to 99%. Many smokers have tried numerous times to quit, using every available product and method, without success. Here's why: All medically-approved smoking cessation methods require abstinence from nicotine. Nicotine improves attention, concentration, and memory, and keeps mood on an even keel. Switching to a smoke free alternative eliminates the ingredients that cause smoking-related lung disease, heart attacks, strokes, and cancer, while allowing the user to continue experiencing the beneficial effects of nicotine. There is no good excuse for taxing these much safer products at the same rate as cigarettes. Encouraging smokers to switch can save society billions of dollars in health care costs and avoid lost years of life and of productivity. Vote NO.

 

[Vocalek]

As long as the 20-25 percent that use tobacco products continue at that level or less, we will not be able to effectively stop any issue of this type .. it's as simple as that .. legislators are elected officials .. they listen when they feel the majority pressure ..

Are you saying that because we are a minority, so we should just give up?

As long as we contine to keep silent, they will continue to get away with this stuff.

And we may only be 25% of the population, but each of us has a minimum of 1 or 2 others who care about us. That puts us in the majority. Speak up! And ask the non-tobacco users who love you to speak up as well.

 

[JerryRM]

We mostly buy our e-cigs and e-juice on the internet, from small suppliers. If the suppliers have to collect taxes, it will cause most if not all of them out of business. Or maybe the government will ban internet sales of ALL so called tobacco products. Enough is enough.

 

[Uncle Willie]

I applaud all that are willing to fight the good fight as it relates to the PV .. I as well added my legislator message and have done so on other issues in the past as well ..

However, I still firmly believe that the primary issue we collectively seem to ignore is the sustainability of this industry in it's current form .. I know I'm going to be taxed .. and I know those taxes are going to go up .. my home is worth less than it was 5 years ago, yet the taxes have still gone up .. that's the reality of the society we live in ... and the so called "sin tax" .. which is what the OP is talking about here, is about impossible to defend and most of you should know it .. how many times did you say over the years .. "When a pack costs XX.XX I'm going to quit.." and you kept on buying, even though it was TAX that made the pack go up .. ??

Point is .. the real concern here is the need to push for standardization in this industry .. forget taxes .. because without standardization, the day is coming, sooner or later, where our right to even own the goods will be banned ..

 

[Uncle Willie]

Are you saying that because we are a minority, so we should just give up?

As long as we contine to keep silent, they will continue to get away with this stuff.

And we may only be 25% of the population, but each of us has a minimum of 1 or 2 others who care about us. That puts us in the majority. Speak up! And ask the non-tobacco users who love you to speak up as well.

Read my next post .. and no, I don't say give up .. but I do say it's not as important an issue as the sheer ability to own and use the goods ..

 

[JerryRM]

I think they learned from the mistakes made with alcohol prohibition. They won't ban tobacco and nicotine, they will just tax it out of existence.

Then they will sit there with smug looks on their faces and proclaim that so called tobacco products aren't illegal, just unaffordable and difficult to find.

 

[Uncle Willie]

Here is a copy/paste from a thread dealing with the Canadian situation right now and pretty much sums up where we are headed here in the US ..

Yes, IVAQS is a total mess - and that's sad, because a lot of well-meaning people gave a lot of money to it. But it never offered anyone salvation, no matter how it turned out. A lot of people still don't seem to understand: the government is not interested in how safe vaping is or isn't.

If they cared about that at all, there wouldn't be an issue. There's enough evidence to sink a ship, to prove exactly what is & isn't in e-juice & to prove that vaping is no more harmful than common caffeine consumption.

None of that has the slightest impact on HC - no matter if a million studies were conducted, no matter how much overwhelming proof is offered. Why? Because the relative safety of vaping is not the issue for them. It's a regulatory issue. If we can deal with the stumbling block of the regulatory issue, the rest falls into place.


---

WHOSE MOVE?

And who is it that's regulated? The industry. So it's the industry that must challenge the problem that faces it. But so far, they haven't done that.

To date, our Canadian e-cig / e-juice industry has never proposed an alternative regulatory framework to HC. Not professionally, or any which way. So far, the grand plan has been to do nothing; to ignore the elephant in the room. And that's a problem - doing nothing, changes nothing.

It's impossible to displace inappropriate regulation without effectively, professionally proposing the alternative of appropriate regulation. No one has done that here. We haven't even adopted standards, for goodness' sakes. We've proposed nothing. That's why nothing has changed yet.


---

THE CHOICE

Regulation is not optional. No industry offering electronic merchandise and/or consumable products goes unregulated in Canada. Every industry must adopt standards.

Without industry-wide standards & some form of (appropriate) regulation, consumers are potentially placed at risk. How would you feel about eating food that wasn't subject to any regulatory oversight? How would you feel about buying electronic merchandise that hasn't been checked for toxic lead, or faulty wiring, or shoddy construction? You see? The government is obligated to regulate our industry.

So the question now is: What kind of regulation do we want?

Do we sit by & allow HC's inappropriate regulation (which misclassifies e-cigs & e-juice w/nic, & prevents any possibility of market authorization) to go unchallenged? Or does the Canadian industry finally get down to the business of adopting industry-wide standards & proposing an affordable, appropriate regulatory alternative?

We've seen the UK vendors make the right choice: we know it leads to success. And we know that success cannot possibly come without it.


---

HELP REQUIRES CHANGE

Vapers can only effectively advocate for the industry when it helps itself & rises to a professional level of operation. I know the industry isn't huge yet. But our suppliers want to prosper & grow. We want them to prosper & grow. And there are people that can help make prosperity & growth the norm. The potential for growth & profit should not be underestimated - it's staggering. But our industry's inaction is standing in the way of it...and indeed, threatening what we have now.

Which deeply concerns me & royally pisses me off. It's bad enough to have the government threatening our access to vaping - but to have our own suppliers threatening it (through inaction) is ridiculous!

So suppliers need to sit down & ask themselves: "Are we going to address the situation, or keep on avoiding it?" The ball is in their court.

I know that change can be frightening; it's always tempting & easier in a way to just ignore a problem. But that doesn't fix things. I'm sure some of our suppliers are thinking: "Hey, I don't know how to propose alternatives to HC. I'm just trying to sell a product!" Relax. There are experienced, skilled people ready & willing to help our industry make the right changes that it needs to make. People that will make the changes as affordable & uniform as possible, too. Canadian suppliers: you're not alone. Significant help is at hand.

More importantly...you have to do this, if you want to survive. You've run out of time for dilly-dallying & fence-sitting.

credit to rachelcoffe for this excellent sumation

 

[Vocalek]

Read my next post .. and no, I don't say give up .. but I do say it's not as important an issue as the sheer ability to own and use the goods ..

I think we have to fight their every effort to put up roadblocks, whether those be laws about sales. use, or taxes; and regardless of whether we are talking about a city, county, state, or the nation, and regardless of which reduced-risk product is being attacked.

Sure some of us feel more strongly about one product than another or about availablility versus use, etc. We should agree to fight them all on every front.

I have testified about e-cigarettes. I have testified about dissolvable tobacco. I'm willing to testify about snus (it just hasn't come up yet.)

The public is vastly ignorant of the concept of tobacco harm reduction. Every time we speak up, we are educating a few more, and then a few more, and then a few more after that.

 

[Uncle Willie]

I think we have to fight their every effort to put up roadblocks, whether those be laws about sales. use, or taxes; and regardless of whether we are talking about a city, county, state, or the nation, and regardless of which reduced-risk product is being attacked.

Sure some of us feel more strongly about one product than another or about availablility versus use, etc. We should agree to fight them all on every front.

I have testified about e-cigarettes. I have testified about dissolvable tobacco. I'm willing to testify about snus (it just hasn't come up yet.)

The public is vastly ignorant of the concept of tobacco harm reduction. Every time we speak up, we are educating a few more, and then a few more, and then a few more after that.

I'm with you 100% .. however, I believe that picking the right fight and using all resources on that one area is the winning strategy .. splintering off in different directions weakens .. and the fight I see as most important is the ability to own the product at all .. without that, we have nothing ..

 

[Turnkeys]

Because it's not about offsetting health costs anymore. It's about liberals filling the coffers, more sin taxes and wealth redistribution. Enough's enough.

 

[Vap0rJay]

DYI time, and time to get to 0 nic. 0 nic, nothing to tax. Aww, shucks.