Sunday, July 22 2007
The news about the Senate's proposed expanded funding for SCHIP, which would increase the tax on cigars by exponential proportions, has spread like wildfire across the blogoshpere including numerous newspaper articles. Here's a story by Tim Jones in The Chicago Tribune titled, "Taxing times for cigar buffs" that cites some excellent examples of how the tax would affect cigar retailers across the nation.
TAXING TIMES FOR CIGAR BUFFS
by Tim Jones (chicagotribune.com)
Now is the time for all good men -- and even a few women -- to come to the aid of ... the cigar.
That's the clarion call from outraged defenders of cigardom, where penny-pinching Stogie puffers and money-to-burn aficionados of $75 Graycliffs are in high dudgeon over a proposed whopping boost in the federal cigar tax, to as much as $10 per cigar.
Almost 90 years after Vice President Thomas Marshall declared that "What this nation needs is a good 5-cent cigar," the Senate Finance Committee on Thursday emphatically said the nation needs a big tobacco tax hike -- the biggest portion on cigarettes -- to fund a $35 billion expansion of a health insurance program for poor children.
The mounting furor over the proposed cigar tax boost may prove to be this summer's sound and fury because President Bush has twice threatened to veto the bill if it reaches his desk. Even if that is an empty threat, the measure, which would raise the cigarette excise tax by 61 cents to $1 per pack and remove the ceiling on the 5-cent-per-cigar tax, still has to work its way though both houses of Congress, and changes would not be surprising.
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