Taxation

In New York State, a new tax on cigarette sales took affect this month. This will raise the current tax of $1.50 per pack up to $2.25 per pack. Before the new tax New Yorkers are paying an average of $5.82 across the state and within New York City, with its additional city taxes, are averaging $8 per pack. This means in some parts of the state, specifically the NYC area, smokers will need to pay near $10 per pack or more. With the new tax New York expects to bring in $265 million per year, and that cigarette taxes will raise a total of $1.3 billion for the state budget in the next fiscal year.

Dr. Richard Daines, the New York health commissioner, is a large supporter of the new tax saying "This is a public health victory. We know one of the really effective tools to get people off of their nicotine addiction is to the raise the price." Dr. Daines is also looking at a forecast of an estimated 140,000 New Yorkers to stop smoking due to the price increase with the new tax. Along with the estimated smokers that stop, Dr. Daines also looks to the youth of the state saying, "Youth are particularly sensitive to the price of cigarettes, so this price increase is expected to prevent 243,000 youth from smoking," This tax is part of an $83 million dollar anti-smoking effort that will also include advertisements and public service announcements.

Another view of the tax is from some of the smokers of the state, one in particular is Audrey Silk, who heads NYC Citizens Lobbying Against Smoker Harassment. Silk thinks it’s ridiculous to expect smokers across the state to just quit because the price is climbing. Since the last New York City cigarette tax increase, Silk switched from buying cigarettes in packs or cartons to rolling her own cigarettes and thinks other smokers will find similar alternatives to satisfy their nicotine cravings and saving money at the same time. “No product has a tax at this rate on it,” Silk said. “If there was, there would be screaming, but since we’ve been beaten into submission and nobody listens to us, what else is there to do? It’s unjustifiable and you turn to alternatives, and any consumer group would do the same.”

Along with the smokers, are the sellers of the cigarettes, they see this tax as a hurt to their business. Convenience stores specifically, which have always had to count on cigarette sales for a large part of their profit and store traffic, are saying it will force smokers and their money to go elsewhere. The way this is looked at is that the customers that normally purchase cigarettes at their local stores will move on, making their purchases at locations that don’t charge the tax. Those places being across from New York City in New Jersey or other bordering state, going online to the internet sellers, and even the Native American stores in the state. The problem that will be most looked at is the bootleggers that bring them in from other states or outright stolen, only to be sold at a lesser cost even without the tax.

The taxing of cigarettes can have positive and negative results on the economy and the people within the area taxed. Some of the positive being, with the new tax in New York, it will surely result in a large number of current smokers to either cut back or quit smoking all together. This in many cases will help in the economy by those now non-smokers having healthier longer lives, being able to contribute to the