* Timing is everything, and yesterday’s committee vote wasn’t great timing for the state’s remaining smokers…
A day before the federal tax on a pack of cigarettes jumps 62 cents, a panel of state lawmakers Tuesday suggested phasing in another $1 increase for Illinois over two years.
The federal increase takes effect Wednesday, and Gov. Pat Quinn has proposed raising taxes on cigarettes by $1 a pack to help deal with the state’s money problems.
On Tuesday, the Senate Executive Committee voted 7-5 to do so in parts - 50 cents this year and 50 more cents next year. The idea now goes to the full Senate for more debate. The House has yet to consider it.
Money raised by the increased taxes would be matched by the federal government by paying for the state’s Medicaid health care costs, said the measure’s sponsor, state Sen. Jeff Schoenberg, D-Evanston.
* But will it raise as much new revenue as legislators think?
The rising prices will affect retailers in different ways, pushing the average cost of a pack of cigarettes over $5 in many of the collar counties, about $8 in Cook County and more than $9 in Chicago, retailers estimated. […]
“This is an aggressive tax. It will cost Illinois tax revenue, slow the economic recovery, and it will cost Illinois jobs,” said Bill Fleischli, executive vice president of the Illinois Petroleum Marketers Association and the Illinois Association of Convenience Stores.
What are you thoughts about this?
LIVE session coverage...
- Anon - Wednesday, Apr 1, 09 @ 10:04 am:
Sorry Rich, but cost is the only effective deterrant to young people smoking. 80% of adult smokers start before age 18. So, if we want to keep our kids healthy and smoke free, we need to increase the cost. Why not do it through taxes — at least there is public benefit to the dollars taken in.
- Vote Quimby! - Wednesday, Apr 1, 09 @ 10:04 am:
I already buy my cigarettes in Missouri due to the tax difference….this would just increase the number of us doing so. For the rest of the state, I guess smokers are stuck. I guess we should all take the hint and stop smoking, is it only matter of time before you can’t smoke in your personal vehicle? But if we all stop, governments would be even worse off financially. And shouldn’t we be adding high-fat foods to the ’sin tax’ list?
- VanillaMan - Wednesday, Apr 1, 09 @ 10:07 am:
But will it raise as much new revenue as legislators think?
No. It will drive folks across the borders, create even more of a black market for cigarettes in Illinois, and force nicotine addicts to cut back somewhere else to find dough.
But frankly, I don’t care about that. We know that when the costs of cigarettes is high, kids prefer to spend their money elsewhere, keeping them away from becoming addicts to this powerful drug. We know this. Cigarette taxes are one of the best ways to keep kids from addiction, so I’m fine with it.
- Sir Reel - Wednesday, Apr 1, 09 @ 10:08 am:
Tax revenues from cigarettes and lost business to convenienc stores is only half the equation. Reduced health care costs, both to individuals and to government, is the other, as smoking is directly tied to multiple health problems. View it as a health care cost reduction strategy.
- HoBoSkillet - Wednesday, Apr 1, 09 @ 10:09 am:
A couple weeks ago, me and a buddy were thinking about getting a few people together once every month or two, and drive out of state for stocking up on our key goods (smokes, booze, and food). Anyone else wanna join in on the “Avoid Illinois Taxes” caravan?
- George - Wednesday, Apr 1, 09 @ 10:13 am:
I assume, HoBo, you are intending to not pay Illinois taxes on those items when you bring them back to Illinois (a crime).
Now, you are advertising your intent to conspire with others to commit that same crime in a public space?
And using electronic communications to do so?
Jeez, one post and you are racking up quite a sentence - both State and Federal.
- Vote Quimby! - Wednesday, Apr 1, 09 @ 10:15 am:
LOL George…for all the law-abiding folks, here is the link to pay your Illinois use tax on out-of-state cigarettes:
http://www.revenue.state.il.us/taxforms/Misc/CIG/RC-44.pdf
- Anon - Wednesday, Apr 1, 09 @ 10:15 am:
George, that was hilarious. Are you really mr. Fitzgerald?
- OneMan - Wednesday, Apr 1, 09 @ 10:16 am:
I remember the ‘cigarette bootlegging’ warning signs between Illinois and Indiana. When I was a youth folks would go to Indiana (a place in Hammond on one side of sate line road) for smokes (there was also a wig place in the same building, go figure) then when Illinois added the lotto there were places on our side of state line road for that.
There were also the bars still in Cal City along the strip but they were not what they were during the sin-city days.
- Independent - Wednesday, Apr 1, 09 @ 10:16 am:
Raising cigarette taxes will doubtless keep some kids from smoking. However we will soon reach a tipping point where cig tax revenues will decline drastically. I’m surprised it hasn’t happened yet.
Illinois’ fiscal problems belong to everyone, not just smokers. Tax increases should be broad-based instead of repeatedly stomping on one group of taxpayers who are disproportionately lower to middle class.
- Concerned Observer - Wednesday, Apr 1, 09 @ 10:16 am:
George, next time you travel to another state to go fishing, be sure to pay that state’s taxes on your pole.
Next time you go camping, be sure to pay that state’s taxes on your tent.
Next time you take the kids on a trip somewhere, be sure to pay that state’s taxes on their Nintendo DS.
Oh, and next time you take a car trip somewhere and come BACK, be sure to pay Illinois taxes on the gas you purchased to get across the state line.
Seriously…suggesting someone buying something like cigarettes in another state and taking it across state lines is a crime…come on, man.
- charles in charge - Wednesday, Apr 1, 09 @ 10:19 am:
I’m of two minds about this. I quit smoking a few years ago, and the high cost was one factor (though by no means the only one) in motivating me to quit. I am a Chicago resident, and at the time I stopped, the price of a pack was nearing $8. It may be more now. When I started as a teenager it was less than $2.
While the policy of high taxes on tobacco is having the positive effect of getting people to quit, I can’t help feeling that every time the city or state needs revenue, in the absence of any other ideas they just slap yet another tax on cigarettes. At some point smokers will be paying more than their fair share, even figuring in all the public costs of smoking-related illness, etc. Whether we have already passed that point is debatable.
- Macbeth - Wednesday, Apr 1, 09 @ 10:20 am:
+++++
What are you thoughts about this?
+++++
I think it’s motivation for someone to write a killer screenplay about the new realities of cigarette smuggling — moving cigs from Asia and/or Eastern Europe into large American cities.
- Concerned Observer - Wednesday, Apr 1, 09 @ 10:21 am:
Okay, I’m the idiot — I honestly didn’t know that you were supposed to fill out a Cigarette Use tax form, so my hyperbole was slightly out of context.
Heh. Good thing I don’t smoke.
- Vote Quimby! - Wednesday, Apr 1, 09 @ 10:21 am:
We need a tax on high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), which harms more kids than cigarettes do…
- HoBoSkillet - Wednesday, Apr 1, 09 @ 10:23 am:
George, I was being light hearted. It’s April Fools Day after all. sheesh.
- Louis G. Atsaves - Wednesday, Apr 1, 09 @ 10:24 am:
I can recall as a kid individual packs being sold at my father’s old restaurant selling for 35 cents each with cartons at $3.00. And I’m NOT that old! Even then people spoke of going to Indiana for cigs.
I can see fewer folks smoking due to repeated price hikes primarily from taxes and know of many who stopped precisely for that reason.
I never smoked myself, but I can’t imagine revenues increasing all that much with fewer packs sold.
- George - Wednesday, Apr 1, 09 @ 10:26 am:
Mr. Smarty Pants Concerned Observer -
If you purchase cigarettes in another state and bring them to Illinois, you owe Cigarette Use Tax.
see http://www.revenue.state.il.us/taxforms/Misc/CIG/RC-44.pdf
“When do I owe Illinois Cigarette Use Tax?
You owe Cigarette Use Tax and must complete Form RC-44 if you bought or acquired cigarettes from another state or country for use in Illinois. For your convenience, the calculation for Illinois (sales) Use Tax, which is also due on these purchases”
- George - Wednesday, Apr 1, 09 @ 10:26 am:
sorry - posted before your mea culpa
- Amy - Wednesday, Apr 1, 09 @ 10:29 am:
tax away on cigs! the cost to the health care system is big. if a monetary penalty convinces people not to smoke, so be it. i cannot imagine that many will cross the border. if they do, catch them in the fireworks stings, make them pay a big fine, and force them to sit in a workshop on why smoking kills.
- VanillaMan - Wednesday, Apr 1, 09 @ 10:31 am:
When I was a youth folks would go to Indiana (a place in Hammond on one side of sate line road) for smokes (there was also a wig place in the same building, go figure)
You mean, Wigs ‘N Cigs?
- Concerned Observer - Wednesday, Apr 1, 09 @ 10:32 am:
George — unlike way the hell too many people here, when I’m wrong, I admit it, and I was wrong.
- Concerned Observer - Wednesday, Apr 1, 09 @ 10:32 am:
(although many more people here admit they’re wrong than the generic internet comments section, which is one reason why I keep coming back)
- Le - Wednesday, Apr 1, 09 @ 10:34 am:
HoBo - it is funny, but technically what you did is almost the same as what Rod is being charged with (at least for the Wrigley stuff).
- VanillaMan - Wednesday, Apr 1, 09 @ 10:35 am:
Reduced health care costs, both to individuals and to government, is the other, as smoking is directly tied to multiple health problems.
Sorry Sir Reel, but we have discovered that smokers die off too quickly to impact health care costs, so that old chestnut has been cracked a few years ago. So, we can’t make that claim anymore.
- Zounds - Wednesday, Apr 1, 09 @ 10:36 am:
I like it. I don’t smoke, and any taxes raised on people who are not me are fine.
Now can we *please* pass a law forbidding smoking in private homes and cars where children are present? They are the most vulnerable amongst us, and suffer greatly from second hand smoke they can do nothing to prevent.
- VanillaMan - Wednesday, Apr 1, 09 @ 10:38 am:
We need a tax on high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), which harms more kids than cigarettes do…
Especially when they smoke it!
If you think high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) harms more kids than cigarettes, you’re smoking something more powerful than ciggies and blowing smoke at the rest of us.
Nanny nutjob!
- Phineas J. Whoopee - Wednesday, Apr 1, 09 @ 10:39 am:
I do know two truck drivers that regularly go through the tobacco states that make a killing bringing cigarettes back to Chicago. This will only help the black market flourish.
Every bar has a poker machine and now they have a cigarette dealer. Hasn’t Cook County actually lost money due to their recent tobacco tax increase?
- South Side Mike - Wednesday, Apr 1, 09 @ 10:40 am:
Growing up in GA, I remember hearing a bust of a couple who went into South Carolina (lower cigarette and beer taxes) and loaded up on ~200 cartons of cigarettes and an entire large truck bed of cases of beer. They were arrested for evasion of excise taxes.
Now, if you buy a couple of cartons (2-3) for your own consumption, will you be busted? No, not unless you’re silly enough to try to resell them publicly. But yes, if you buy enough, you will attract attention and possibly jail by doing this.
- Justice - Wednesday, Apr 1, 09 @ 10:41 am:
Mr. Fleischli certainly has his priorities in order….? How about the fact the tax will help deter the young from smoking thus saving billions in Medicaid and public health in general. Those savings far outweigh any loss in tax revenues. The smoker has more health problems, and uses more sick days which cost employers and eventually all of us. Talk about spin, the facts are ridiculously skewed by Mr. Fleischli.
- downstate hack - Wednesday, Apr 1, 09 @ 10:42 am:
It will cut purchases in Illinois. People will go elsewhere. I predict revenues for the State will actually decrease, but with no real decrease in consumption, only a difference in where people buy them.
- HoBoSkillet - Wednesday, Apr 1, 09 @ 10:42 am:
Wow, I am an idiot. My apologies to all for posting something so stupid. I didn’t know that an actual tax form existed and thank you to Quimby and George for bringing this too my attention. I am going to go hide my head in the sand now for posting something that ignorant.
- Vote Quimby! - Wednesday, Apr 1, 09 @ 10:58 am:
HoBo..it’s OK. I am actually curious how much Illinois rakes in on the ‘voluntary’ cig use tax form. It can’t be much more than a hundred bucks.
And for those forming groups to go out-of-state, note the legal limit for importation is one carton (10 packs) per person, per trip (and you are still supposed to pay the use tax). Any more than that and you are playing “Smokey & The Bandit.”
- Jake from ? - Wednesday, Apr 1, 09 @ 11:01 am:
For all I care, they might as well raise taxes on parachutes. I don’t jump out of planes and I don’t smoke. I love increasing taxes on items that I will never purchase. Now lower the tax on alcohol please!
- SangamoGOP - Wednesday, Apr 1, 09 @ 11:23 am:
Wasn’t it OK for Blago to go over the border to Canada for cheaper drugs? Why not head to IN or MO or WI or IA for cheaper cigs?
- Statehouse veteran - Wednesday, Apr 1, 09 @ 11:53 am:
To me this is a win/win situation. Either more revenue will enter state coffers or fewer people will smoke. Sure some folks in border regions may cross a border for smokes (which is illegal.) But for the most part smokers are like other addicts they want a fix — right now and won’t travel far once they start Jonesing… I guess they could buy in bulk out of state ahead of time but how many people can afford to make large bulk purchases to feed a habit? Eventually folks willing to accept cancer, heart disease and emphysema as a cost of their addiction will also put up with higher taxes.
- Third Generation Chicago Native - Wednesday, Apr 1, 09 @ 12:04 pm:
With less and less places for smokers to smoke, and that not deterring smoking, will another tax? Probably not, and they know it. Smoking costs everyone, health care, clean up (butts & dry cleaning, window cleaning etc) they might as well pay because we all do.
- Fan of the Game - Wednesday, Apr 1, 09 @ 12:14 pm:
It will negatively impact tax receipts. That’s a bad thing. It might prevent more young people from becoming smokers in the first place, and that’s a good thing.
- 47th Ward - Wednesday, Apr 1, 09 @ 12:14 pm:
So I finally quit smoking last year, in part because of the cost. Now, instead of smoking, I’m popping nicotine lozenges like tic-tacs.
Anybody else notice that Nicorette, Commit and even the generic brands of nicotine replacement products cost about the same as cigarettes? Can the state take a tiny bit of the tobacco tax increase to subsidize this stuff?
If a goal of increasing the tax is to get people to quit, a little help for those of us trying would be nice.
- Princess - Wednesday, Apr 1, 09 @ 12:29 pm:
Princess is done to 1/2 a pack a day (Yah, me) and that is just over the federal tax, I’ll be zero by the state tax hit. Not only out here in the boonies did we get the new higher fed tax cost , the store/gas stations slapped on anywhere from 40 to 75 cents a pack increase for good measure.
- Suzanne - Wednesday, Apr 1, 09 @ 12:45 pm:
Vanilla Man is right about health care costs. Don’t forget the Social Security and disability payments that don’t get paid out, too. When you count all costs related to smoking dispassionately, it turns out smokers are net positive and why putting the $1 tax increase on the revenue side of the ledger is pretty funny.
- Ghost - Wednesday, Apr 1, 09 @ 12:46 pm:
Quinn is worried about low income families, but not when it comes to paying taxes, but apparently he is for sin taxes on items like alohol and smokes. Acording to the GOP (Rep. Brenda Landwehr, R-Wichita) “the majority of smokers have an annual income of about $20,000″
So we are increasing a tax on goods consumed mostly by those with lower incomes.
- How Ironic - Wednesday, Apr 1, 09 @ 12:53 pm:
@Ghost,
Maybe that’s a good thing. Stop smoking $20K and under earners. Then maybe you can spend the money on rent, a car to get to work, food for your family etc.
- Quinn T. Sential F/K/A Blago Sphere "TM" - Wednesday, Apr 1, 09 @ 1:55 pm:
{What are you thoughts about this?}
I am not a smoker; and at times have been accused of being an overly zealous non-smoker, imposing my views on the subject on others, without regard for their position or opinion.
That being said, while the statistics support your hypotheses to some degree, I would like to see the statistics that would support your claim of “certain early death”
While death and taxes may be the only things that are indeed certain in this life, the timing of the former remains largely un-certain, and as a result remains probably the truest test of character.
The age old hypothetical question about; what would you do, or do differently, if you knew you only had ___ time to live; often begs a follow up question when the answer is something redemptive.
The follow up question is; if that is what you would do if you knew you only had ___ time to live, then why wouldn’t you, or why haven’t you simply done that already, if that is what you feel is really the right thing to be done?
- KPK - Wednesday, Apr 1, 09 @ 4:31 pm:
Add another $1 to those costs as the manufacturers will raise their price to compensate for less sales just as they did with the Federal Cigarette Tax increase.
Can we place an excise tax on unhealthy foods since obesity seems to be linked to many health problems. Or how about raising the tax on alcohol as there are long term medical issues with continued use along with increased costs from drunken driving accidents.
Teens won’t want to smoke cigarettes, it will be cheaper to buy weed.
Revenue forecasts are overstated, they have assumed (per budget proposal) 0.6% increase in population with a 0.8% decrease in smoking. I think at least .8% will be buying from non-IL places (other states or online)
Lastly, there goes that “tax cut” Quinn is giving part of the middle class just like Obama’s tax cut to 95% ends up around 75% +/- since that 20% +/- of smokers are giving it right back.
- steve schnorf - Wednesday, Apr 1, 09 @ 5:15 pm:
With each increase, revenues will grow, but at a declining rate.
- Sangamon Sage - Wednesday, Apr 1, 09 @ 6:55 pm:
Isn’t it interesting that the governor’s “share the pain” budget singles out two unpopular groups, State employees & smokers. As a former State employee & smoker it looks to me like these two groups are getting a pretty large slice of the pain pie.
- Larry - Wednesday, Apr 1, 09 @ 8:13 pm:
What about an internet porn tax?
- wordslinger - Wednesday, Apr 1, 09 @ 8:24 pm:
–Nanny nutjob–
What’s with the name-calling? The ever classy VMan wants to tax a legal product for adults to keep kids from using it. What would you call that?
I guess if you’re the nanny (and that’s a nice word for it), it’s okay.
Someone brings up a legal product that contributes to childhood obesity and all of a sudden it
- Wheel n' Deal - Wednesday, Apr 1, 09 @ 8:51 pm:
I’ve worked with seniors for years and seen many former and current smokers. Heart, lung and vascular disease can be lived with for a long time and cost quite a bit of money to care for. So, as a smoker, I’m ok with paying my fair share now to balance out my expenses later.