This is not a pro-smoking rant...

[muckefuck]

...this is an anti-government rant.

A few years ago, the county tax on cigarettes was 18 cents per pack. In 2004, the county board raised it to $1. As of St. David's Day, it will double to $2 a pack. Add that to the federal, state, and local taxes and you get a whopping $4.05/pack, the highest in the USA. Now, I don't buy cigarettes, so why should I care? Because this is immoral.

Why? Let me count the reasons:

1. It's highly regressive. Really, any flat tax is. It's easy to see how--just do the math: A pack-a-day smoker who was paying $1113.25/year in cigarette taxes (or more than I pay in property taxes on a one-bedroom in a hot neighbourhood) will now pay a staggering $1478.25/year. That's less than 1.5% of her annual income--if she makes more than $100,000/year. Someone making $20,000 will kiss goodbye to 7.4% of their earnings--and that's not even counting the price of the cigarettes! Now, which income bracket do you suppose more smokers fall into?
   
   (And it's worse than that really, since the richer you are, the more purchasing options are available to you. Lower-income smokers already pay more on average because of the markups at inner-city shops, whereas it's much easier for a richer person to order over the Internet or drive to Indiana for their smokes.)
2. It preys on the weak. Yeah, I know, smoking's a choice--that's what people say who have never tried to quit smoking. You know what else is a choice? Drinking milk. How easily could you eliminate all dairy products from your diet if the price of a gallon of milk suddenly doubled? ("But milk is a necessity." Oh yeah? Tell it to the Chinese.) Now run that scenario again, only this time imagine that lactose is the most physically addictive substance known. Smokers already pay a high price for their addiction in the form of societal discrimination and increased health costs. Does it make us feel good to know that we're making their lives even crappier?
3. It's discriminatory. Yes, smoking is a filthy, nasty, dangerous habit. (So's drinking. Guess which kills more innocent bystanders each year?) So are a lot of activities which are pleasurable to those who engage in them. Let me tell you exactly how comfortable I feel with a bunch of grandstanding politicians invoking Puritan sensibilities to divide behaviours into "virtues" and "vices" so they can justify taxing the hell out of the latter: It's a toss-up between "bugger-all" and "f&ck all y'all". Sure, there's an argument to be made that the state has a role in reducing the impact of harmful activities and tax incentives are a less dirigiste method of doing this than outright bans, but it kind of falls apart when certain activities are singled out for exorbitant levies and others get off scot free or nearly so.
   
   (Those of you in the audience who call yourselves Good Liberals can add in the fact that rates of smoking are higher among racial and ethnic minorities than among the general population. That is, the Vietnamese immigrant waitresses on Kenmore are paying more in taxes so the wealthy white males in Margate Park can pay less. Don't we all feel better just knowing that?)
4. It puts the state at odds with its public health mission. Okay, so say we accept that it's the state's role to protect us from ourselves by curbing harmful activities that we engage in willingly. If that's what we want it to do, where's the logic of making it dependent on those self-same activities for a significant portion of its revenue? Every smoker who kicks the habit means less money for the City, the County, and the State. How hard to you think their administrations going to urge the public health authorities under their control to reduce the number of smokers? Would you hire Keebler's PR firm to promote the Atkins diet?
5. It's pussilanimous. This is probably my biggest problem with the tax hike: It's a way of avoiding real budget reform. Everything about it smacks of desperate, short-term, ad hoc thinking. The fundamental problem is that the state spends more money than it takes in. The politicians are too cowardly do what it takes to rectify this, such as making deep cuts in expenditures, tackling corruption and bureaucratic inefficiency, and taking on the vested interests who oppose a more equitable tax regime.
   
   Smokers are a socially marginalised group without much clout or public support, so politicians feel free to stick it to them with impunity. Isn't that the kind of injustice government--if it has any justification at all--exists supposed to prevent rather than facilitate?

One of the main reasons the state is becoming increasingly reliant on sin taxes is that one of the best-connected interest groups are the property owners. The County can get away with a lot as long as it doesn't raise taxes on real estate. I recognise that my property taxes are probably lower than they need to be to support the level of public services that I expect, but I'm not exactly going to take to the streets asking for the county to tax me more--and I'm certainly not going to do it as long as much of my tax dollar is frittered away on graft, patronage, and subsidies. Still, if there were someone out there who was actually interested in reforming the tax regime to make it more comprehendable, equitable, and rational instead of just shifting the burden from one lobby to another, I would support them to the fullest--even if the end result was having to pay more. So where do we find this Solon?

Comments

[bsquad.livejournal.com]

New York will probably lose. Only our poorest smokers ever pay those usurious prices. Smokers of means have numerous options for buying cigarettes from outside the city.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

And Chicagoans-with daily commuter rail to both Indiana and Wisconsin--don't?

On the other hand, overall cost of living is much lower out here, so we can continue to squeeze our poor for longer than y'all can yours. Here they can blow $2500+/year on their bad habit and still make the rent payments.

[mollpeartree.livejournal.com]

A non-moral argument I left off the list is decreasing returns.

So true. I haven't bought cigarettes within the state of Illinois in years now. I don't recall exactly when I got priced out; I think it was when the cost of the tobacco settlement was added in. I wonder if they've published any charts or info tracking rate hikes vs. total revenue actually collected over time.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Sorry if that last response was too snarky. Let's try again:

If I suddenly started smearing myself in rancid herring oil just cause I liked it, how much sympathy wold you have when I complained about being marginalised?

Not much, but that's not really the point. The question is would your marginalisation and my disgust justify hiking up the excise tax on herring oil to astronomical levels (i.e. 50+% of the purchase price) as a consequence?

[lhn.livejournal.com]

Very good points all. The solution, I think, is not so much to tax cigarettes more heavily but to force tobacco companies to own up to the fact that what they are peddling is, in fact, a drug.

Solution in what sense, though? If we treat it the way we treat other substances classified under the law as drugs, then that leads to the whole ban+illegal-sales+drug-war dynamic that we have now for most recreational drugs and that we had during Prohibition for alcohol. Assuming that's not the desired outcome, what is? Big government or small, what's the aim?

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

I always suspect they're playing a numbers game, particularly when the aim is to present the appearance of a balanced budget. Do they really figure in the percentage of people who will stop buying cigs in Cook County when they do the projection or do they just take the previous year's take and double it, hoping that no one will call them on it next year? (And how do you estimate what the effect will be when you're the nation's leader in tobacco taxes? One website I ran across claimed that "the consensus" is that, for every 10% increase in price, the number of smokers declines by 7%. Well, that's real simple then: Just increase the price by 150% and everyone will give up smoking--problem solved.)

[bitterlawngnome.livejournal.com]

I think refined sugar comes the closest. Partly because of the physcial aspects - it gives you a high, and you feel like crap after and crave more, but in the end you can live quite well without it - but mostly because, like smoking, it's legal, and when you're trying to avoid it, it seems to be EVERYWHERE, and almost every eating or social situation seems to contain a trigger. Comparing smoking with foods has the problem that we are all 'addicted' to food - and even if we'd like to kick that habit we cannot.

Similarly religion is not a good comparison because many believers don't feel it is a choice, there is only one true religion etc etc etc. Anyone who smokes knows it's possible (if v difficult) to quit. Also I'd add, it's possible to pray in public without making others around you breathe second-hand prayer :)

The relevance to your post, for me, is that this is a tax people can avoid. I stopped smoking when and how I did because a pack of smokes went up about $5 (this was in the 80s) and I had plenty of social support to stop.

[bitterlawngnome.livejournal.com]

see above

[bitterlawngnome.livejournal.com]

Now there's an interesting premise for an SF story - a culture where you are taxed less and less the more mortally-risky activities you engage in.

[lhn.livejournal.com]

Told from the POV of an investigator who follows people around to prove that they're not in fact doing the smoking, speeding, or BASE jumping they claimed on their tax return, and are thus liable for penalties: "Look, mac, the air in your apartment could be used unfiltered in a clean room, your toll transponder never shows less than a half-hour between booths, and you haven't been treated for as much as a contusion for three years. Do you want to cough up now, or pay triple damages when the lab results come back?"

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Sugar is the best analogy so far--thanks for that. I still don't think there's any problem with comparing smoking to particular foods. What we need isn't "food" per se, it's certain compounds which are most readily found, most easy to process, and most pleasurable to ingest when they are found in food. We could meet all our nutritional needs through appallingly unpalatable means.

(Speaking of SF, I'm reminded of Vance's "The Last Castle" where the alien slave caste is forced to take their nutrients intravenously through packs on their backs so they don't waste time eating. When one complains, he is told, "The syrup meets all nutritional requirements." "So why don't you eat it?" he snaps back.)

My point about religion is simply that just because a certain activity is ultimately a choice doesn't mean that (a) making a different choice is trivial or (b) discrimination against the person who makes that choice is justified. Prejudice is ugly even when it's directed against a "deserving" target. (I'm not saying all anti-smoking attitudes amount to prejudice, but an awful lot of them do.)

Again, just because a tax can be avoided doesn't meant it's not discriminatory or otherwise unjust. I think that whenever a government decides to treat one group of citizens markedly differently than another, then it needs to go some distance to justify this unfairness. Prove to me that the guy lighting up next to me in the bar does more damage to myself and society than the guy who drove 50 miles to be there (and whose gasoline taxes don't even cover the costs of the roads he uses, much less the externalities), and then maybe I'll have a more sympathetic ear.

[lhn.livejournal.com]

the guy who drove 50 miles to be there (and whose gasoline taxes don't even cover the costs of the roads he uses, much less the externalities),

Do you have a cite for that? (It's a claim I hear reasonably often, but thus far I haven't found a quantitative analysis.)

[bitterlawngnome.livejournal.com]

Matter of fact, I wonder why no smartypants in the Gov has figured out how to tax sugar.

[lhn.livejournal.com]

Odds that we won't see taxes based on levels of sugar, fat, or some combination thereof within the next decade? (The lawsuits against purveyors of "unhealthy" food are already starting.)

[dilletante.livejournal.com]

in fact, sugar is subject to significant price supports in the u.s.-- which is why most mass-market foods use corn syrup instead.

[dilletante.livejournal.com]

some states (such as maryland, i think?) tax all illegal drugs. they get to have it both ways.

[goreism.livejournal.com]

For most definitions of "Christian," is being a Christian a choice? How much choice is involved in holding most of your beliefs?

[datan0de.livejournal.com]

Brilliant! Absolutely brilliant! May I link to this?

Got Milk Tax?

[foodpoisoningsf.livejournal.com]

Milk is next...

Methane gases from all forms of cattle production are a major contributor to climate change, in addition to damage to fresh water resources and fisheries. It's entirely plausible that the butterfats in milk products are addictive and that the dependence on dairy products may be a factor in childhood obesity.

The immense size of the dairy industry here is one reason why MacDonald's and Burger King have been able to expand and remain profitable for decades- cheap beef. It's where all the worn-out dairy cows go.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Be my guest.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

The perverse thing, of course, is that milk is one of those commodities like sugar or ethanol that our government actually subsidises. In a sense, there already is a milk tax and a sugar tax--and they're of even less benefit to the average citizen than the cigarette tax.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

How do they manage that? How do you tax something which isn't legal to sell?

[dilletante.livejournal.com]

oh, that's an old trick. you just don't tax it at the point of sale-- you issue tax stamps. (sorry-- tennessee was the state i was thinking of, though that blurb also links to an article about a similar scheme in indiana.)

just because it's illegal to possess something doesn't mean it can't also be separately illegal to possess it without having paid the proper tax, because laws don't have to, you know, make sense. (and apparently, like civil forfeiture, taxation is magically "not punishment," so it can come on top of whatever fines or sentence you might get-- or even be assessed if you're acquitted. it is a thing of beauty.)

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

People pick up and abandon beliefs all the time. I can't help having been baptised a Christian, but when I came of age I freely chose to stop believing in that religion--as have (independently) my older brother and my father (and Mom's kinda hanging by a thread there with her vague talk of "spirituality"). It took effort and money to remain Christian and at some point I decided it was no longer worth either.

Is this necessarily an easy choice? No--but that was exactly my point.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

The bureaucrat who thought that up must be very pleased with himself indeed!