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California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed into law an 11 percent tax on guns and ammunition Tuesday, describing the gun control measure as a “sin tax.” On August 23, 2023, Breitbart News reported that California Assemblyman Jesse Gabriel (D) was pushing legislation to create the 11 percent excise tax on firearm and ammunition sales in the state. He touted the bill as means to bring nearly $160 million in annual revenue for the state government. Former Assemblyman Marc Levine (D) voiced support for Gabriel’s excise tax because California is “facing a $31.5 billion budget gap,” the Sacramento Bee noted.

Lawmakers from Pennsylvania have put forth a bill that proposes a 10% excise tax on violent video games. House Bill 109 seeks to impose the so-called "sin tax" on games sold at retail that are rated by the ESRB as M for Mature or Adults-Only. The money would go into a fund called the "Digital Protection for School Safety Account" that aims to enhance security measures at schools in the wake of the school shootings in Parkland, Florida and Newtown, Connecticut. State representative Chris Quinn, a republican, initially put forth the bill in 2018, but it never made it out...

Philadelphia’s outlandish soda tax is what Democratic-party politics looks like when it lets its freak flag fly. So many classic elements are there: (failed) social engineering and “think of the children!” on one side, paid for with a punitive tax on poor people and destroyed businesses, which means destroyed jobs, which in turn means lives upended. What lives? Greedy capitalists with monocles, maybe? No, they’ll be fine. Think of ex-cons trying to regain their footing in society. To review this debacle, in 2017 Philadelphia, seeking to fund a universal pre-K program, slapped mammoth sin taxes on Coke and Pepsi (and...

Sin taxes on alcohol and tobacco have cost the Treasury more than £31 billion, an analysis has disclosed amid calls for a reduction in the Autumn Statement. Around £31.6 billion of tax revenue has been lost because of the illicit market in spirits, beer, wine, cigarettes, rolling tobacco and diesel, according to the analysis of HMRC figures by the Taxpayers’ Alliance. The high taxes on alcohol and tobacco simply fuel a black market in the goods which means that HMRC loses money, the campaign group said. …

A new report has urged the French government to up taxes on fizzy drinks or soda as well as chocolate bars. A can of coke and a Mars bar could soon become a much pricier snack in France. The shock report was presented to the French parliament on Monday and it includes a proposal was made to significantly increase the tax on sugary drinks. The current tax stands at €7.53 per hectoliter, or 2.51 centimes for each can of soda. These amounts would rise to €21.47 per hectoliter or 4.6 centimes per 33-centiliter can of soda if the proposal were...

<p>NEW YORK (AP) — The nation seems to be kicking its smoking habit faster than ever before.</p> <p>The rate of smoking among adults in the U.S. fell to 15 percent last year thanks to the biggest one-year decline in more than 20 years, according to a new government report.</p>

A licensed brothel in the city of Salzburg has been offering free drinks and free sex in a protest against what its owner says is unfair taxation. The Kronen Zeitung tabloid reports that the news “has spread like wildfire, with punters lining up to get inside”. Salzburg’s “red light district king” Hermann ‘Pascha’ Müller, who owns the well-known Pascha brothel, told the paper that he no longer wants to be “the tax office’s pimp”. German-born Müller told the Kronen Zeitung that he’s already had to “turn away hundreds of disappointed customers” as he has had a full house since the...

Eric Garner died in July because he resisted arrest, forcing police to take him down the way they take down thousands of suspects daily. Only Garner wasn’t an average suspect. He had allowed himself to become morbidly obese and had diabetes, heart disease and who knows what other self-imposed health problems. Still, he never should have died that summer day. Big government killed Eric Garner. Police were just the weapon. Garner was selling “illegal cigarettes” that day, or “loosies” – individual cigarettes from a pack. Why would anyone buy individual cigarettes? Because government, in this case New York, both city...

The unelected and unaccountable sages at the World Health Organization (WHO) can’t seem to help themselves or resist the temptation to try to regulate the behavior of everyone on the planet. This is a shame, really, because a group like that could actually do some good if they stuck to trying to get basic supplies and medical care to people in remote, poverty stricken countries. But rather than devoting themselves to such laudable goals, they’re once again pushing to get every government on the planet to jack up sin taxes on tobacco.(This is something they’ve tried before, as I wrote...

The (well-funded, I am sure) opposition to San Francisco Supervisor Scott Wiener's ballot measure to tax soda and other sugary drinks calls itself the Coalition for an Affordable City. Its website features owners of corner markets explaining how the proposed tax would hurt their businesses and expressing their bewilderment at City Hall's picking on hardworking merchants. I agree with every point they make, but there's a more fundamental problem with the measure. From the moment Wiener came to the San Francisco Chronicle editorial board last November with a group of like-minded earnest folk to tout this scheme, a little voice...

But he was most animated, his voice pitching higher and lower and the volume steadily increasing, when he spoke of global warming. "This is for real. It is not made up. The scientists are not in a conspiracy to lie to us," Gore nearly shouted. "The generation of people alive today will be held accountable," he said. "Our children and grandchildren ... if they exist in a world that has been devastated by these consequences that have been predicted and are beginning to unfold -- they would be well justified in asking of us: 'What in the hell were you...

Forward to the study: In his study, The Wages of Sin Taxes, Chris Snowdon reveals that these taxes not only do little to limit the use of “bad” products, they do nothing to reduce societal costs. Most remarkably, Snowdon demonstrates that those shockingly large estimates of the costs that the consumption of alcohol, tobacco, sugar, and fat supposedly impose on society have little basis in reality. As Snowdon shows, the myth that “sinners”—those who drink, smoke, and eat unhealthful foods—cost more to society than everyone else has been perpetuated in large part because “government has no incentive to tell the...

(CNSNews.com) – Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) said on Wednesday that Congress ought to look at imposing a federal tax on soda pop. “We have to address the situation in the marketplace," DeLauro said at a press conference on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. "Right now, the least expensive beverages are often those with the least value to our health like regular cola or juice drinks that are only 10 percent juice. “But I will tell you that if you’re paying $3.49 for juice and 79 cents for soda, if you are in a low-income family and you have...

For French residents fond of sugary drinks like Coca Cola, life is about to get more expensive. The country's top constitutional body, the Constitutional Council, approved a new soda tax on Wednesday. The tax, which works out at about 1 euro cent per container, is part of austerity measures passed in France to combat the debt crisis, and is expected to generate around €120 million ($156 million) in revenue for the government. … The "cola tax," as people are calling it in France, will now go into effect on Jan. 1. French media are reporting that most companies will raise...

A 34-year-old Bowie man acknowledged in federal court Friday that he participated in a ring that distributed more than 17 million black-market cigarettes, a scheme that prosecutors said cost the government more than $2.6 million in taxes. Chun Chen, who goes by Eddy and owned a carryout restaurant in Maryland, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit extortion in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt... The far-reaching probe became public last fall, when then-Prince George’s County Executive Jack B. Johnson (D) and his wife, Leslie, now a council member, were arrested. Jack Johnson was indicted in February on bribery charges. Leslie Johnson...

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Proponents of the big government regulation and control of Americans' lifestyle choices are beginning to realize their 'in your face' approach isn't quite receiving the warm reception they expected. As cash-strapped cities and states across the nation increasingly attempt to plug gaping holes in their budgets by passing "sin taxes" and flat-out bans on sugar-sweetened beverages, freedom-loving citizens are protesting these nanny state efforts to curb their "bad habits" by purchasing and drinking even more soda and sports drinks, Slate.com reports. Citing evidence that suggest sin taxes tend decrease consumption of certain food and beverages deemed 'unhealthy' by nanny state...

SAN ANTONIO - The Texas Supreme Court is deciding whether to strip away a $5 entrance fee to watch nude dancers. The court heard arguments Thursday about whether the so-called pole tax, a fee mandated by lawmakers in 2007, is unconstitutional. Texas has so far collected more than $13.6 million from the fee. But many clubs have ignored the law, which is intended to fund programs for sexual assault victims. The Texas Entertainment Association, which represents strip clubs across the state, sued to block the fee. Lower courts have sided with the clubs. Justices questioned both sides at length. Talk...

Employing a broad-based lobbying effort, the soft drink industry has smothered a plan to tax sugared beverages — a plan advocates said would have reduced obesity and helped finance health care reform. Only months ago, public health advocates thought the tax would be a natural for congressional Democrats looking for revenues to fund expanded health insurance coverage. The soaring costs of treating ailments related to excess weight — including diabetes and heart disease — added urgency to the issue. But the White House staff reviewing funding options never embraced the idea even after President Barack Obama expressed interest last summer....

An increasing number of German smokers are turning to contraband cigarettes in response to higher tobacco taxes, according to research published on Monday. Between 2005 and 2008 the number of untaxed cigarettes smoked in Germany grew from 16 to 20 percent, according to Hamburg Institute of International Economics (HWWI) Director Thomas Straubhaar at a conference in Berlin. Instead of reducing the number of cigarettes smoked, the tax has only increased the number of illegal cigarettes consumed – some 23 billion, according to Straubhaar. The tax increase has also created an overall reduction in tax revenue earned on tobacco, HWWI expert...