No state can exist without taxes, but any taxation must be limited. The cigarette taxation is especially high. One federal cigarette pack tax amounts not a big sum, the nation-wide middle tax amounts a considerable sum a pack, in common making a good sum per pack. Local towns and states tax at increased rates. The same rate amounts much in New York City. The question is why smokers have to bear such high taxes. No, they can find cheap cigarettes online.
The conclusions of Kip Viscusi, the University Distinguished Professor at Vanderbilt University (and the former Cogan Professor of Law and Economics and Director of the Program on Empirical Studies at Harvard Law School) have shown that the taxation charges laid on smokers exceed the social costs charged for their habit.
The cigarette charges were sufficiently increased by the Master Settlement Agreement. But even prior to this fact, the taxation charges were not lower or even greater than the medical aid charges related to smoking. Viscusi says. As a separate case, the Illinois’ cigarette taxation to Viscusi rated to a smaller sum a pack exceeded the social expenses of tobacco consumption even until the settlement increased the price of a pack of cigarettes to a considerable amount. We dare ask the question why these taxes must be so high. Are high cigarette taxes really profitable for the state budget?
Of course, it is not. High taxes raise the cigarette prices and make them inadmissible to the buyers. As a result, buyers can start searching for cheap cigarettes online to satisfy their needs. This is the basis for the purchasing from unauthorized distributors, black-market sales, counterfeiting and much others. Such illegal or half-legal transactions will lower the incomes of legal cigarette distributors and consequently the amounts of their taxes imposed.
What is then the reason to impose higher taxes on smoking products? Evidently, this is an attempt to force cigarette users to quit their habit after they can scarcely afford to buy cheap cigarettes online. But another side is that the users will search for above-mentioned opportunities to satisfy their needs.
The cigarette addiction must not be underestimated. And then a risk appears that smokers can buy poor-quality smoking products from unknown manufacturers and distributors, which will be a serious health danger in comparison to the products of world-known manufacturers. This argument must be thoroughly considered.