New Tobacco Tax Rates

steverino · New Tobacco Tax Rates

I posted this on CPS and thought I'd post it here too for ready reference.

The new numbers come directly from H.R. 2 as approved by the House and sent to the Senate. The current tax numbers come directly from the Internal Revenue Code of 1986.

Pipe Tobacco

The current tax is $1.0969 per pound.
The proposed tax is $2.8126 per pound.

Cigars

The current tax is 20.719% of the selling price, with a cap of 4.875 cents per cigar.
The proposed tax is 52.4% of the selling price, with a cap of 40 cents per cigar.

Cigarettes

The current tax is $40.95/1000.
The proposed tax is $105.00/1000.

Please note that there are some further details for both cigars and cigarettes according to weight. Refer to this site for tax code information. For text of H.R. 2, search www.thomas.gov.

ozark southpaw

Makes me Glad I quit the stinking cigarettes!!

drbridges

"Sin taxes" on alcohol and tobacco. What would our government do without us "sinners" paying the bills?

Texhealer

ted

And why would y'all suspect that Grabow's annual sales fell from 600 gross/week, to 300, to 150, to 100 (when I left), to 23 today?..Despite the references in the SGR of 1964, pipes have fallen out of favor with smokers. Why have the percentage of pipe smokers to total smokers dropped so significantly? Somebody please "splain this to me.........What has the pipe industry done wrong?

Are pipes, and Grabow destined to be the "second (or third or forth) class smoke?......It's tough to see a "old friend" die, but it's dying.......ted

steverino

When the tobacco tax increases were first proposed last year (or year before, I can't remember now), they were so much higher than the current porposal that I felt they could certainly hasten the death of pipe smoking. With the hefty floor taxes that retailers would have to pay, I was afraid a lot of the smaller B&Ms would close. Since these numbers have moderated quite a bit, I'm thinking they won't keep most pipe smokers from smoking, but no question they will contribute to the overall downhill slide.

One encouraging thing - when I was telling my wife about the tax increase, her reaction was "You better go buy a bunch of tobacco!" I wouldn't think of going against her wishes.

Texhealer

Ted I don't know if this helps you feel any better or not, But, in the 20 hrs per week that I work at a local B&M, on an average week I'll sell at least 4 or 5 customers their "First pipe" for the last couple of years now, that first pipe comes with about 20 minutes of free instruction, tobacco recomendations etc...

We are seeing quite a few of these folks as return customers and some buying more pipes, trying different tobaccos etc...

I don't know how many pipe smokers we are losing, but we are adding at least some new blood to the ranks.

drbridges

That sounds hopeful. Another thing you must consider, with new restrictions on smoking, we see less and less public smoking of any kind. Might be a significant population of pipers smoking only at home.

ted

TH...Thanks for that....Keep it up...ted

ozark southpaw

Poplar luff has about 15-20,000 people. I have seen ONE other person smoking a pipe during my trips into town. Gotta be more,all the larger grocery stores,Walgreens and some convenience stores sell pipe tobacco and I ain't buying all of it!