Posted on 01/14/2009 8:03:20 AM PST by TornadoAlley3
[UPDATE: According to the IPCPR, the tax cap will be 40 cents per large cigar. Please click here for their full press release. The tax portions of the bill can be downloaded here (pdf) and the full bill can be downloaded here (285 page pdf).]
Well, it looks like today well all finally learn just what the new federal tax will be on cigars. No more speculation and rumor. The facts will be laid out in the bill to reauthorize the 11-year-old State Childrens Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), which is slated for a vote in the House of Representatives Wednesday or Thursday.
Federal budget crunchers were working the numbers Monday, trying to see if everything adds up. Apparently, the increased tax revenuelargely from a cigarette tax boostisnt now sufficient to expand and fund a five-year plan. So, theres consideration of shortening the time frame and coming back again in a few years.
As I write this Monday night, the final SCHIP bill hasnt been released. Its anticipated this morning, and the first place youre likely to find it is on the House Rules Committee site or on Thomas.gov. Groups involved with tobacco, such as the IPCPR and the National Association of Tobacco Outlets, will also be on top of it.
For most of you reading this, the heart of the issue is what happens with large cigars, the category that includes premium sticks. One provision that could have devastated small cigar shops, a floor tax on inventory, has been shelved. And the plan to boost the cap on individual cigarscurrently about a nickelappears also to have been scaled back.
When President Bush vetoed the previous SCHIP bill, the cap was $3. There has been intense lobbying to push it down more. A few weeks ago, a number of reports put the cap proposal at $1. Over the weekend, a couple of retail shop owners told me theyd heard the cap would be 40-45 cents. A GOP staffer on the Hill told Patrick S on Monday that he was hearing cap figures between 39 cents and $1.
Jeff Borysiewicz, an executive at the gigantic Corona Cigar Co. and executive vice president of Cigar Rights of America, said Monday night that even if the tax ends up at the lowest of those ranges, he wont be satisfied.
I dont feel good about whats happened, he told me. The group was among those arguing for a percentage tax increase equivalent to the 156.4 percent boost for cigarettes. That would have put the cigar cap between 12 and 13 cents.
Borysiewicz said hes convinced that a tax even in the 40-cent range will have significant negative repercussions on manufacturers, importers, retailers and customers as it ripples through the market.
As you read the figures in the new bill, bear this in mind: What you see today is almost certain to become law. SCHIP enjoys strong support from key GOP and Democratic lawmakers, and what the House approves is what the Senate will vote on. Though there has been a lot of talk about having the legislation ready for a Jan. 20 signing by President Obama on Inauguration Day, Im told its highly unlikely the Senate will vote by then.
TAX, TAX, TAX, TAX, TAX. We are witnessing absolute runaway liberalism. Tax and spend beyond all imagination is a freight train headed our way -—
This won’t help the City of Boston as Cigar Bars have been marked for death in two years.
Oh The Humanity!
Before too long, Castro will be dead and the embargo on Cuban cigars may be eased. Right at the time that cigars are outlawed regardless of nation of origin.
Smoke your money instead of just lighting cigars with it.
Are we going to have a return to private clubs? Something that old money has always preferred?
Tax everything which might be remotely dangerous.
Surprised there isn’t a skiing tax, Or a mountain biking tax.
I guess it is only a matter of time.
JR Cigar is having an awesome “S-CHIP sale” on some good Cigars to lighten their inventory before S-CHIP hits. Some really good buy... Stocking up!
ML/NJ
What happened to the “Blue Dogs” Democrats who was “supposed” to be “Conservative”???
They get their cigars for free... from lobbyists.
Conservative Democrats? Much like the Wyoming Jackelope.
Lucky for me I quit a couple of months ago - of a sudden, my favorite cigars (Swisher Sweet Slims, Phillies Cheroots and Muriel Coronellas) all started tasting like crap. Tried to hang on another month or so and finally smoked the last one. A month later cigars started making big jumps - $1.65 to $2.25 overnight, etc.
And now this piece of crap - anything to screw the little guy, under the guise of “it’s for the children”. What happens, as it has with cigarettes, when people do stop smoking and revenue drops? Ah well, there’s always the general treasury and besides, it’s for a good cause anyway.
Guns
Talk Radio
The conservative internet
and so it goes..
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