High Tobacco Tax Again, South Carolina

Every day more and more countries increase taxes for cigarettes, and unfortunately nobody know when this anti-smoking method will end. For example, smokers form South Carolina will also pay 50 cents more for their favorite cigarettes. So, for the first time in 33 years, South Carolina is going to increase its cigarette price. The state senators voted to cancel Gov. Mark Sanford’s veto of a 50-cents-per-pack cigarette tax increase.

However, the governor vetoed the tax raise, declaring that he would support the new tax hike only if there were a coinciding tax cut anywhere else. The House disregarded the veto by a vote of 90-29. But the senators voted 33-13 for to dominate.

So, the higher tobacco taxes will shock smokers starting with July 1st.

“Only think it’s a little bit too greatly and there is much better method to raise money for that kind of product,” declared smoker Colby Richards after she heard about the coming tax raise.

Probable the tax will rise approximately $125 million, most of which will go to Medicaid to compensate the loss of federal incentive money starting with the next year. And $5 million will go to cancer investigations, but another $5 million will go to quit-smoking programs and the last $1 million will go to market agricultural products except tobacco Sen. Tom Alexander, R-Walhalla, has been working for years to get the tax increase passed. Before the recent vote on the Senate floor, he declared that the colleagues of Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids considers that the higher tax will supply approximately 23,000 kids in South Carolina from starting to smoke cigarettes and even will encourage approximately 13,000 adults to quit smoking.

But after the vote, Kelly Davis, with the SC Tobacco Collaborative, which has been pressuring for the tax reported: “So you may be meditating, ‘Well I don’t smoke so how does this can affect me?’ But according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, every family in South Carolina pays a covered fee of $578 per year to cover tobacco-related healthcare price in our state.”

However the store owners said that the higher tax will only hurt their tobacco business and oblige them to suspend employees at stores that border North Carolina and Georgia. Because North Carolina’s tax is 45 cents per pack and Georgia’s is 37 cents. And they fear that the smokers will go to states where tax free cigarettes are not expensive for to buy their favorite cigarettes, and so hurting the state’s economy and jobs.