Tobacco tax affects state revenue
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It is no longer an issue about health. Hasn't been for a very long time. Once the sin taxes started on cigarettes, that is when it all became about greed.
$$ corrupts
$$ corrupts
As long as there is a Politician breathing this will never happen. Sin tax money is like ...... to a Politician
The extra $130 million in tax revenue would be about 3.2% of total $4.09 billion WV budget. Yeah sure, total catastrophic bankruptcy. When will you figure out that this is pocket change to them?
The important thing is how they fraudulently pretend smokers cause an extra "$1.3 billion in additional health care costs imposed on taxpayers through social healthcare programs, according to a report by the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources." It's based on the CDC's fraudulent SAMMEC computer program, which falsely pretends that costs paid by smokers themselves were paid by society (in direct contradiction to DHHR's claim!), falsely blames smoking for diseases that are really caused by infection, and pretends that non-smokers' health costs don't exist at all. The net effect is that smokers subsidize non-smokers.
When one of my "kids" came to me and questioned my continued smoking, I asked them why would they deprive poor kids of medical ins. since part of the Fed. excise tax went for that and the rest of the Fed. excise and all of the State excise tax went to help poor people with their medical bills?
Seemed to me that those people who do NOT smoke aren't paying their "fair share" to support poor people with their medical needs and smokers deserve a medal! Ha!
Seemed to me that those people who do NOT smoke aren't paying their "fair share" to support poor people with their medical needs and smokers deserve a medal! Ha!
Here's an interesting table of tobacco tax revenue for our country listed by region through 2013...
Tobacco Tax Revenue
It looks like revenue peaked in 2008 right before the big tax increase in 2009 and revenues haven't gone back up that much at all since. It looks like roughly 13 billion was lost immediately over all. It's interesting to note though that revenues have remained almost steady since 2008 even though smoking rates have dropped. So it looks like there have been increases in taxes to try to keep up with the declining revenue but those increases haven't been enough to increase revenue by more than a hair. Vaping is definitely being seen as a replacement for that lost revenue, vaping could even bring that revenue back up to pre-2008 levels if left to grow and prosper and taxed as tobacco.
So while current revenues aren't what they used to be they could be if we loose our battle. If states aren't in danger from lost revenue now they will be when that future revenue, if vaping is left to grow and be taxed, is realized. States may or may not suffer if tobacco taxes disappeared but it sure looks to me like they are doing everything they can to make sure that doesn't happen. They're gonna play as dirty as need be to get that pre-2008 money back.
Tobacco Tax Revenue
It looks like revenue peaked in 2008 right before the big tax increase in 2009 and revenues haven't gone back up that much at all since. It looks like roughly 13 billion was lost immediately over all. It's interesting to note though that revenues have remained almost steady since 2008 even though smoking rates have dropped. So it looks like there have been increases in taxes to try to keep up with the declining revenue but those increases haven't been enough to increase revenue by more than a hair. Vaping is definitely being seen as a replacement for that lost revenue, vaping could even bring that revenue back up to pre-2008 levels if left to grow and prosper and taxed as tobacco.
So while current revenues aren't what they used to be they could be if we loose our battle. If states aren't in danger from lost revenue now they will be when that future revenue, if vaping is left to grow and be taxed, is realized. States may or may not suffer if tobacco taxes disappeared but it sure looks to me like they are doing everything they can to make sure that doesn't happen. They're gonna play as dirty as need be to get that pre-2008 money back.
Something just does not add up. Can not find a corresponding dip in smoking rates back then. Just a brief acceleration in an already downward trend... Wonder if Federal taxes were included in the totals prior to 2009 and excluded after the increase? Perhaps shared in some part prior? The chart does say "State and Local Tobacco Tax Revenue" and I can not think of anything other than accounting tricks that would not have resulted in the states screaming bloody murder at the time. Dropping from 16.5 billion to 3.6 billion in one year is huge!
Something really doesn't add up. The figures in the 1977 column are identical to the figures in the 2009 column. All down the line.
Or that you cannot believe anything the gov reports. I am leaning towards that one
Bottom line is that I will continue to not smoke and I will share my success to anyone that will listen to it or publish it. It works, so that is my responsibility to do.
I have worked to reduce my nicotine need to near negligible. I have a lot of hardware and juice supplies. I will just continue on.
I have worked to reduce my nicotine need to near negligible. I have a lot of hardware and juice supplies. I will just continue on.
Interesting. I didn't pay any attention to the first years columns just the later columns. I'd like to know if the numbers in any of the later columns are accurate. OldBatty- I wonder if the drastic drop was perhaps due to people buying from sources that can't be tracked, that is if the drop was really anywhere near what's showing.
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I have wondered about that too. It's possible to get a pretty good idea by economic modeling, something an economics grad student could probably handle if advised by one of his professors. Lots of money would start flowing in new directions. There would be winners and losers. Forcasting that would be very interesting. It probably hasn't been done before because it was considered impossible. It's now possible and should be studied.
...and right around the time vaping started to kick in as well. I see it as a three-fold event with the first two hitting the 'economically underprivileged' more as they suddenly had less disposable income 1) Tobacco tax increase 2) Economic down turn 3) Vaping tobacco replacement. Can't/won't roll back the first two so all that's left is us...guess you really do get more tax revenue if you lower taxes...makes everything more affordable so you buy more.
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