sales tax cigarettes
Wednesday, December 16th, 2009
The rising cost of car tags is grabbing headlines as six state legislators return to Jackson Tuesday to continue debating how much to raise Mississippi’s cigarette tax, but the equally serious matter of smoking and its health care costs remains a major part of the debate.
The House and Senate have passed different versions of a cigarette tax increase. The House bill would have raised the cigarette tax to $1 a pack while the Senate approved raising the tax about 49 cents a pack.
A conference committee of three state senators and three House members is trying to resolve the different measures, but they’re stuck.
So far, Senate conferees have agreed to raise the tax to 64 cents a pack.
The House is standing pat at 75 cents a pack.
Negotiations resume Tuesday at the Capitol in Jackson.
Conferees agree raising the cigarette tax will replenish the State Tax Commission fund that rebates auto sales tax money to counties to help hold down the cost of car tags.
When the cost of cigarettes goes up, the number of smokers goes down. That means state and federal government have to spend less on smoking-related illnesses such as cancer, heart disease, stroke and respiratory illnesses like emphysema.
The largest increase in federal tobacco taxes occurred April 1 when the tax rate rose from 39 cents to $1.01 per pack of cigarettes.
That move is expected to result in a million smokers giving up the habit and prevent 2 million young people from ever starting, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In Mississippi, the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids estimated that that state spends $8.37 in health care for every 18 cents — the current state cigarette tax rate per pack — collected in cigarette taxes.
Mississippi’s cigarette tax rate is the third-lowest in the country.
Meantime, quitting smoking is one of three health care practices — childhood immunizations and the prophylactic use of aspirin (mainly to prevent heart disease) are the others — that the state funds, which will result in a net gain for taxpayers, said Thomas Payne, a clinical psychologist and associate director of The ACT Center for Tobacco Treatment and Research at the University of Mississippi Medical Center.
“We collect 18 cents (in taxes) and shell out $8.37 in health care per pack of cigarettes sold,” Payne said.
“This is very costly to society. For every pack of cigarettes sold, we lose more than $8.”
Additionally, treating smokers who are on Medicaid is costly for the state. The federal government funds about 76 cents of every Medicaid dollar spent in Mississippi. The state pays the rest.
The CDC estimates up to 37 percent of Medicaid recipients are smokers, which means state and federal governments eventually will have to pay health care cost for them.
About 24 percent of Mississippians are smokers, Payne said.
He noted a direct correlation between education levels and smoking. Only 5-6 percent of individuals holding doctoral degrees smoke, but more than 20 percent of people who did not finish high school are smokers.
“The higher the education and income level, the lower the rate of smoking,” he said.
The author of this article is:
the-cheapest-cigarettes[dot]com
smoke-discount-cigarettes[dot]com
About the Author:
Cheap Cigarettes
Discount Cigarettes Online
Article Source: ArticlesBase.com – Legislators continue cigarette tax debate
Cigarette makers lobby for a tax rollback
