Posted on 03/29/2009 8:09:02 AM PDT by FromLori
Many non-smokers have said this new tobacco tax doesn't affect them. Think again!
When the Children's Health Insurance Reauthorization Act of 2009 goes into effect on April 1, 2009, there will be unintended consequences for everyone in the United States - whether or not they smoke. There are also expected consequences, such as cigarette smuggling across our border. According to the Arizona Department of Revenue, increased taxes on tobacco will increase black market sales as well as tobacco smuggling from Mexico. Within a year of the enactment of this tobacco tax, our federal government will begin a study to find out how much revenue is being lost to tobacco smuggling and to find ways to recover this lost revenue. However, those are only the expected consequences. To find out how this law will affect you, your family and our nation, read "SCHIP Tobacco Tax: Bad News for Smokers - Worse News for the U.S." at:
http://headsupusa.wordpress.com/2009/03/26/schip-tobacco-tax-increase-how-it-will-affect-non-smokers/
(Excerpt) Read more at freedomsphoenix.com ...
It has been proportional to the taxes in particular states, but this new 0bama tax is significant and the black market will grow.
Right now the biggest supply lines are via internet orders from abroad and some stateside indian reservations. But those sources are becoming more difficult and risky to use due to increasing cooperation between governments in enacting various reporting requirements. Still, the volume is huge, and usually small orders direct to individual consumers, so customs only catches a small percentage of them. Under previous administrations the US Postal Service has resisted pressure to become an enforcement agent, but I'm betting that will change soon enough, and USPS does have the technology to do the job efficiently.
So that leaves smuggling in the traditional sense, across overland borders. Already well established between Mexico and Arizona/California, it will increase. To boost margins, it may be counterfeit product made in sweatshops out of who knows what. Add to that, organized breakins of stores and stateside distribution centers, and perhaps more armed hijackings.
No good will come of any of that.
Neither do I.
Along with drug legalization, we should re-legalize tobacco.
(While we're at it, we should consider re-legalizing booze).
They are just not (now) taxed as viciously as tobacco (give our Imperial Congress time).
Why?
They have to pay the fed. taxes, they don't have to pay the state taxes.
The cost of their tobacco is going up as well.
Amen.
It is your duty to buy from the black market.
I know a lot of people here disagree with me on this, and that's fine. But sin taxes are a fact of life. We're going to have them. As long as they aren't too high, they are preferable to and outright ban. We live in a nanny state full of puritans who would ban all vices if they could. A whole lot of people like that are right here on FR. People like this and governments starved for cash are always going to push for sin taxes, both to raise revenues and to discourage vice. I'd rather we didn't have sin taxes, but I recognize that were always going to have them no matter what, so I'm not going to get all bent out of shape by them unless they get too high. When they get to be too high, they are almost like a ban, like prohibition, and that I do have a problem with because prohibition causes us all lots of problems. There is conduct that we should prohibit and maybe even some substances, but prohibition comes with some serious costs of its own, costs to all of us. Prohibiting a product for which there is high demand causes black markets, organized crime always gets involved, we have a certain number of otherwise law abiding citizens who will become criminals, we have government corruption, we have an erosion of the rule of law, freedom is diminished, and so on. Raising taxes to the point where it causes all this is really just about the same thing as prohibition, prohibition light if there is still an operating legal market and a thriving black market because the high taxes drive significant numbers of consumers to the black market.
You really don’t get it do you?
Nazi.
“Nazi.”
Mach es dir selber, du Blödes Arschloch.
I get that we're going to have sin taxes no matter what, and that if the government goes too high with them we'll just end up with a black market which will do more harm than good. Revenues will go down and any benefit from the reduction in vice will be negated by the new problems that arise.
OK, you do get it.
And I have over 25 plants started already. More to come.
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