Ruralite Cafe: Published 05/30/02

By Lisa Majors-Duff - News Editor

Should General Assembly tax cigarettes?

Exactly the opposite reaction is evoked from most smokers, who go on to proclaim that a tax increase would not prevent them from lighting up.

Should the N.C. Legislature go ahead with plans to implement the additional tax? While your answer to this question is most likely dependent on your smoking status, emotion probably plays an even greater role in your response.

If you've lost a loved one to a smoking-related illness, as I have, you're probably lining up with me and others who support the tax. We would like to believe, as those who plan to call for the tax increase in the General Assembly, that a smoker will think twice before paying an extra $1 per carton of Camels. That same smoker might even decide to quit smoking because of the tax, thereby accomplishing one of the perceived goals of the tax - a healthier individual.

Not likely, according to the smokers I talked to this week and according to the Common Sense Foundation. In their May newsletter, the Raleigh-based public policy researchers point out several reasons state legislators should halt attempts to increase taxes on cigarettes, one of which is the argument that improved health among North Carolinians is a pipe dream. The state should not be in the business of making health care policy proclamations through the implementation of tax policy, they say.

Besides, why single out cigarettes as an avenue to improve our health and not the "fast food" industry's compulsion to "super size" our fat grams, increase our waist lines and up our chances of developing heart disease. If government wants to improve the health of North Carolinians, it should impose a french fry tax, Common Sense folks say.

"That's a comparison of apples and oranges," non-smokers say. Poor eating habits harm only the individual who ordered the Big Mac; smoking harms not only the smoker but all those around unlucky enough to be exposed to second-hand smoke.

Taking the offensive and returning to the subject, non-smokers quickly come back with the claim that a cigarette tax would be applied to those who of their own freewill partake of this "indulgence," the same as beer and liquor drinkers; the cigarette tax, therefore, should be included in the so-called "sin tax" package being proposed.

Not so, according to Common Sense researchers, who point out that a cigarette tax would disproportionately burden the poorest North Carolinians.

"Increasing the cost of cigarettes would take more gross dollars from low-income citizens who have more of a tendency to smoke than from the rich... Addicts don't give up their addictions easily," the Common Sense Foundation says. "Raising the cost of cigarettes simply means folks with limited resources will spend less on other things."

That may be true, non-smokers say, but what about the fact that a cigarette tax would be a way to increase revenues, especially now that the state is facing a projected budget shortfall of more than $1 billion. To that Common Sense researchers say non-smokers have fallen into a trap and contradicted themselves.

"Those who would propose that North Carolina rely on the revenue from a cigarette tax to balance its budget each year cannot also claim that the tax will reduce consumption because if smoking declines the revenue from this tax will also plummet," Common Sense researchers say. "The two goals are in opposition to each other."

At this point emotion alone is enough to keep non-smokers in the debate. A cigarette tax would hurt tobacco companies, they pronounce.

Think again, Common Sense folks say. A better approach would be an increase in the corporate tax rate, which would apply to tobacco companies and would be less likely to be passed on entirely to consumers.

"The General Assembly raised the corporate tax rate during the 1991 budget crisis and business hardly floundered here in the 1990s," researchers point out.

Not willing to throw in the towel, non-smokers say a cigarette tax would be an effective deterrent, especially for youth considering taking up the habit. But remember the age group with the most disposable income relative to expenses - teens. Not only that, but studies in states that have hefty cigarette taxes earmark them mostly for tobacco control programs.

"It is unclear, therefore, whether it's the price increase or the tobacco control that causes a decline in smoking," Common Sense says.

"I just don't like cigarettes," the non-smoker says.

At this point Cafe debaters decide its better to change the subject to something a little less controversal, like women preachers. The tobacco tax debate in its purest form has reached its end because there's no way to argue with emotion.

Although it may not be necessary for Cafe patrons to reach a decision on the issue, the discussion will continue in Raleigh. Stay tuned.

Back to Archive: 05/30/02.