Tuesday, February 10 2009
By Bill Toland,
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Given the state's sinking revenue returns, makers and sellers of cigars worry this will be the year that the Legislature and the governor are finally able to win passage of a new tax on cigars and smokeless tobacco.
Foes of tobacco usage have the opposite concern -- that the tax will again be sandbagged.
Cigars, snuff, pipe filler and other types of loose tobacco are subject to an excise tax in every other state, including tobacco strongholds North Carolina and Kentucky.
But in Pennsylvania, attempts to place a "sin" tax on cigars and loose tobacco have been thwarted time and again by cigar-loving politicians, wholesale retailers, snuff manufacturers, convenience store lobbyists and a small but oddly powerful bloc of tobacco farmers from Pennsylvania's midsection.
Debate on cigar tax continues to smolder continues...
