All border states favor North Dakota raising state cigarette taxes from 44 cents to $1.44 per pack, which is approximately a 227 percent state tax increase. As it is, smokers pay in the neighborhood of 50 percent total taxes in all taxes on a $3 pack of cigarettes. It is, in effect, a tax increase on the poor who make up the majority of smokers.
Some may be prompted to quit and others will seek to purchase untaxed black-market and/or Internet cigarettes. Excessive “sin taxes” generally means proportional increase in criminal activity, which mirrors Prohibition.
If smoking is such a threat to our youth and causes premature death at high rates, then it ought to be banned altogether. Why should states garner huge profits through the public sale of a product that is a proven carcinogen? Is it two wrongs making a right or choosing the wrong that is most right?
“Once the camel gets its nose into the tent, soon it is in bed with you.” If excessive sin taxes are going to be used to manipulate behavior (for our own good, of course) ,then there is plenty of sin to go around. Why be selective? How about a 200 percent tax increase on abortion, fast food and obesity, for starters?
Комментариев нет:
Отправить комментарий