Thread: CA. Lawmakers consider $1.50-per-pack cigarette tax hike

Originally Posted by JohnDoe2

Originally Posted by jshhmr

I agree with MW on this one. Just because California has one of the lower cigarette taxes in the country doesn't mean they should raise the tax. Taxation without representation. It can't be that low. I used to be a smoker. When I was in Cali back in 1995, I paid $4 for a pack of smokes that I paid $2 for in Texas, so the tax is obviously fair where it is.

What is fair ? to whom ? At 87 cents 30 States have higher tax on cigarettes than CA.

Why only comments about CA. at $2.37 and nothing about N.Y. at $2.75 and R.I. at $3.46 ?


What is fair? 3 cents, 87 cents, $2.37 - (87 cents plus $1.50),$2.75, $3.46 ?

Taxes range from:
3 cents a pack in Virginia,
7 cents a pack in South Carolina,
87 cents in California
$1.46 in North Carolina
$2.75 a pack in New York,
to $3.46 a pack in Rhoade Island.

www.tobaccofreekids.org/research/factsh ... f/0097.pdf

$0.00 is what is fair. None of the states should be charging extra tax on cigarettes or any other product. All products should be a straight up sales tax. Pick any product and you can figure out a way that that product is dangerous to your health or to the environment....blah blah blah. It is all bs and will escalate over time and will spread to other products. It will never be enough for them.

No comment on the article I posted, JohnDoe?

California taxes: too high or too low?
By Dan Walters
SACRAMENTO BEE
2:00 a.m. May 27, 2009

California's perpetual budget crisis and voters' rejection of five budget-related ballot measures last week have renewed the perennial debate over whether Californians are, to borrow a comparison from “The Three Bears,â€

[quote:3h6xv1ju]The state alone expects to receive some $14 billion less in general fund revenue during the 2009-10 fiscal year than it did in 2007-08, even with the boosts in income and sales tax rates. And that means that Californians' overall tax burdens have actually declined – a silver lining of sorts on the otherwise very dark economic cloud. [/quote]

[/quote:3h6xv1ju]

This is the biggest barrel of bs I have ever heard. If our overall tax burden has decreased....IT IS BECAUSE WE DONT HAVE JOBS OR WE DONT HAVE FULL TIME JOBS. What kind of silver lining is that? Where are the jobs. They screw everything up and then tell us we are so lucky to be paying less tax, because we are not employed? Oh and we are losing our homes....no property tax....lucky us!

Tobacco tax increase could help Calif.

Monday, May 25, 2009

Supporters of an increase in cigarette taxes are counting on California's budget crisis to pass their bill.
Senator Alex Padilla, from Pacoima, told the L.A. Times that a higher tobacco tax is even more important than in years past, because it could raise more than a billion dollars a year for the struggling state government.

The current proposal would increase cigarette taxes by $1.50 per pack.

It will go in front of the Legislature next month.

latimes.com/