Roll your own!
Posted on 08/10/2002 3:37:48 PM PDT by SheLion
Illinois smokers comprise only 22.3% of the adult population in the state. Here is what they already pay because they choose to use a legal product:
Smokers Pay Excise Taxes
$ 476,818,000
Smokers Pay Sales Taxes
$ 172,641,000
Smokers Pay Local Excise Taxes
$ 66,700,000
Smokers Pay MSA Payments
$ 287,800,000
Total $1,003,959,000
Smokers’ Economic/Tax Profile
Income
Smokers’ median income 2000
$35,582
Median Income Smoker State Tax Liability
Yearly state tax liability (married filing jointly)
$ 947
Yearly state tax liability (married with two children filing jointly)
$ 888
Smoker Excise/Sales Tax/MSA Payment Liability
Total average paid per Illinois smoker in excise and sales taxes
$ 361
Price per Illinois smoker for MSA payments to Illinois
$ 145
Total annual payment to Illinois per smoker
$ 506
Illinois Smoker Facts
Cigarette excise taxes alone generate the seventh highest total revenue for the General Fund.
The total amount generated from smokers would more than pay for the individual budgets of 95 of the 111 agencies that are budgeted by the state including the entire budget for the University of Illinois ($928.2 million)
and is more than twice the budget for the Illinois Community College Board ($424.4 million).
Smokers’ payments are almost eight times more than the revenue from alcoholic beverage taxes ($130 million),
significantly more than revenue from the lottery ($790 million) and more than twice the revenue from riverboat gaming ($465 million).
In 1997, smokers provided 16,385 jobs that paid an additional $17,324,051 to the state in personal and corporate income taxes.
CIGARETTES DON’T PAY TAXES – ILLINOIS SMOKERS DO!!
Illinois Data Sources
Total Packs sold = 822,100,000 (Orzechowski & Walker from Illinois Dept of Revenue)
Excise taxes = packs sold multiplied by excise tax rate (.58)
Sales Taxes = packs sold multiplied by sales tax rate (6.25% or .21 per pack)
Local excise taxes collected (Orzechowski & Walker)
$47,900,000 Cook County (18¢ per pack),
$18,800,000 estimated in cities (mostly Chicago [16¢ per pack])
MSA Payments (Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids)
Number of smokers (1,984,700)= Census Bureau 2000 Illinois 18+ population (8,900,000) multiplied by CDC’s 2000 percent of adults who are smokers (22.3%)
Total paid per smoker excise & sales taxes = total excise and sales taxes paid divided by number of smokers
Total paid per smoker for MSA payments = MSA payments divided by number of smokers
Smokers’ median income per CDC’s Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System 2000, public use data. 58,771,430
Cigarette excise taxes as seventh highest for General Fund from Illinois Department of Revenue Website
Comparison to agency appropriations amounts from Illinois Comptroller website
Jobs created and personal/corporate income tax paid from Economic Impact of Tobacco 1997.
Roll your own!
Thanks so much, Lokibob! It takes awhile to post all of this, and I have a lot more to do! ~whew
But I think the smokers need to know just how MUCH their taxes are going to the states!
We used to travel down to the National Guard at Bangor, but cigarettes went up so high there, that it wasn't worth the gas to drive down.
Just wish a few more folks would pay attention to it. Particularly non-smokers. Because if the trend of anti-smoker continues and the taxes keep increasing and the bans become more prevalent, these numbers are going to start to tank. and it will be non-smokers that are going to be hit the hardest to cover the shortfalls.
Smokers know what they are paying, it is the non-smokers who need to be educated. I'm not talking about anti-smokers, they don't care, except when they start losing their share of it.
it's the non-smokers who just don't realize how much the smokers pay into the different state general fund every year, in addition to the everyday taxes that everyone else pays.
And for those non-smokers who think that smokers cost non-smoking taxpayers money - they are WRONG. There have been too many studies NOT done by the tobacco industry to prove it wrong. And most of those were done prior to the MSA, which was supposedly to reimburse the states for the excess taxper fund supposedly spent on smoker health care. The MSA added $4.50 for each carton of cigarettes, until 2023, to pay for it - even though it had alrady been proven it was not neccessary.
So it's the non-smokers who need to be educated about this money, because as smokers start refusing to pay the extortionate prices, someone is going to have to start paying the difference. Non-smokers need to remember this when they support or vote for increased cigarette taxes.
Gabz, you know it as well as I do: when more and more smokers (55 million of us), wise up, buy our cigarettes elsewhere or roll our own, the state will not realize all that tax revenue to fill their honey pots.
They will SURELY have to tap something else. I can't wait!
This will be a huge wake-up call to the non-smokers, you can believe it! They should be wining and dining us, IMHO. We are still Free Americans, and have the freedom of choice to buy whereever we see fit! At least, the government hasn't taken THAT away from us yet. Although they are WORKING ON IT.
Oh yes! Get this! Prescriptions in Maine are so over priced, that Senator Collins has been loading the seniors on BUSES and going over to CANADA for their prescriptions! LOL!
Now, why don't they do that for smokers? Cigarettes are WAY too high in Maine. Oh, but I forget: it's a health issue. heh! MY A$$!
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