Whenever there is a state budget deficit, lawmakers tend to look for the quickest way out. This session of the Kansas Legislature is no different: The proposed cigarette tax increase of 65 cents per pack is attractive for lawmakers and difficult to oppose philosophically. But it creates a new set of legal issues for the state.
Washington increased taxes by 60 cents per pack ($14.20 per carton) on Jan. 1. Since that time, increasing numbers of otherwise law-abiding citizens have routinely bootlegged cigarettes across the border from Idaho and Oregon, where taxes run only $2.80 per carton and $6.80 per carton, respectively.
On April 1, Washington intercepted 3,200 cartons of untaxed cigarettes being smuggled into the state. That one-day seizure represents more than $46,000 in lost cigarette taxes. Washington's Liquor Control Board, which oversees tobacco enforcement, estimates that it loses $105 million a year to cigarette-tax evasion.
Nearly 40 percent of Kansans live within easy driving distance of Missouri and Oklahoma, so the same thing could happen here. It's an even stickier problem in Kansas City, where people live in one state and work in the other. Missouri's current tobacco tax is only 17 cents, compared with Kansas' current tax of 24 cents. Further, Missouri's sales tax on food is three cents less than Kansas'. If the tobacco tax increases to 89 cents, Kansans in bordering counties will have an extra reason to put a Missouri stop on their shopping lists.
Kansas Food Dealers Association members operate grocery stores touching virtually every Kansas community. They sell tobacco products primarily as a customer convenience. But a 65-cent tax increase on tobacco will make even the most loyal customers turn to other avenues - either across state lines or through the Internet.
This was a letter to the editor in a local paper, written before the Kansas cig tax escalated to 89 cents a pack. In nearby Missouri it is still 17 cents.
O, what irony that would be! A Kennedy evading a tax that he helped to create!