If the PACT bill made you mad, this should make you livid . H.R. 4439 would amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to impose the same rate of tax on pipe tobacco as is imposed on roll-your-own tobacco. This is proposed because RYO sellers have relabeled their product as pipe tobacco to avoid the high rate of taxation. This would effectively take the tax rate per pound of pipe tobacco from the current $2.831 to $24.78. For full information and to register your opinion go to washingtonwatch.com . Currently, opinions are running 89 percent against the measure. This affects me personally since my business associate at Tangiers Ltd produces hookah tobacco and this is taxed as pipe tobacco. It would KILL his business in short order and make our snuff making project even more iffy. So let your voices be heard!
God Damn this!
By all that is right and loves justice. May all the whores and thiefs we’ve elected be known as they are and nothing more from here on out. So let it be.
Here is something to consider, snuff brothers and sisters. If this passes, we can expect the RYO companies to relabel their product as chewing tobacco which is taxed at a lower rate. Congress raises chew to parity with cigarettes at $25/lb. And then snuff is on the chopping block. The sky ain’t falling on us just yet, but if we don’t strongly oppose it, the wolf will be at our door someday soon.
That’s the most retarded thing i’ve heard in ages. I guess the time will come when we’ll have to re-label that stuff as fertilizer/pesticide and see them jack up the taxes on that! Bunch of twats that’s what they are. First it’s smokes , then it’s RYO now it’s pipe tobacco , someone needs to stop them before this gets out of hand. And i don’t even live in the states , but it’s going to affect me as well when all the small tobacco farmers and producers are going to go out of buisness. And you know what ? These rates do _NOTHING_ for public health , they’re just taxing for the hell of taxes , they know nobody is going to stop using tobacco , they’re just playing the “health” card to get more money off our backs. Where i live smokes and RYO have doubled in price in the last year alone. If it weren’t for snuff & snus I’d pe paying half my salary just so i could enjoy my measly nicotine. And for what ? nobody’s smoking any less and i sure as hell haven’t seen any improvements to the health system (which is universal and *free* , yet i still have to pay off everything from nurses to doctors and pay for my own godamn stitches because they can’t allocate enough funding…after paying for insurance of all things.) Needless to say RYO and pipe tobacco cost way more than smokes , and that’s for the shitty “honestly officer , we keep rolling papers for the RYO tobacco” kind. What’s even more revolting is that they’re probably doing this because of lacking revenue due to all the smoking bans everywhere and even more so due to their inability to spend public funds properly. I tell you one thing , the moment they finish “plugging all the holes” in their little piece of paper the black market will start to flourish and they’ll get none of the tax money , greedy sons of … It’s already happening here , i haven’t seen so many illegal tobacco vendors since the 1990’s when the communist regime fell. I wish all the tobacco farmers would organize a nation wide boycott for a few months , that would show them. I seriously need to consider buying a piece of land and hiring some farmer to grow tobacco for me , this whole thing is going in the wrong direction. And i suggest you guys do the same , gather yourselves up and buy a common piece of land if you’re relatively close to one another , you’ll thank me in 5 years. // excuse my little rant , I go crazy about these things.
Thank you for that rant. We should be up in arms over this perfidious govmint interference. an easy way to get your position in front of our public servants. Just visit http://www.rallycongress.com/stop-the-pipe-tobacco-tax/2826/ and get yourself on record against this bullshit.
I think Dick cheney should take them all hunting!
Am I right in supposing that the Tobacco Tax Parity Act originated with Phillip Morris USA, the U.S. tobacco division of Altria Group that has monopolised half of the continent’s cigarette market? Or is there something wrong with my supposer? The corporation has certainly supported the legislation and, not inconceivably, might have politicians in its capacious pockets. This could be a nice little earner for some. Not for innocent pipe smokers and their suppliers though, who are midgets compared with the mighty Alria Group. Here in the UK Customs and Excise duty was removed completely from tobacco intended for snuff manufacture. Snuff is about the only luxury that is not expensive. Fortunately we haven’t seen other tobacco products being branded as snuff to avoid tax and usage remains, thankfully, a quiet backwater. Therefore it is not likely to incur the interest/wrath of BAT (British American Tobacco) plc.
I will certainly voice my displeasure over this latest display of asinine greed and incompetence. Everyday brings me closer and closer and closer to complete and total lack of any faith and respect in the dimwit, as bob put it, “whores and theives” that run this country. Tobacco and it’s use were very instrumental in the birth and development of the nation these bastards are raping and pillaging at record pace. I would pack my family up and leave for Europe tomorrow if that were a viable option. I know things aren’t perfect there, but a change would be nice. Sadly, that is not a possibility. Freedom…one must wonder exactly how we do define that nowadays. I suppose we are free as long as we can afford those freedoms and our Big Brother says it’s good for us. Once again another example of a government that believes the people answer to it, not that it answers to the people. The decline continues, and big brothers noose of restriction tightens yet another notch. If they keep going they’ll have tobacco at marijuana prices, then they’ll create yet another lucrative black market that they will be totally incapable and inept at controlling. I assure you all I will bootleg and smuggle tobacco if that ever becomes necessary. Oh yes, I most certainly will. In the tradition of my moonshine running Pennsylvania relatives, I will become a tobacco runner. Maybe some shine on the side for old times sake. *sigh* Did we have one revolution already over unjust and unfair taxes? Maybe it’s just been to long, or a knowledge of history may not be prerequisite for a House or Senate seat. I know people with a GED that I would MUCH MUCH rather be represented by than the self serving liars that I currently am. This government is a joke anymore. Blame anything and eveything than can on terrorism and “won’t anyone think of the children” just to line thier pockets. Bastards. Meanwhile rape us with taxes to support their coke habits and pay for their tansvestite hookers. I hope they snort a line of anthrax or Drain-o by mistake. Oh well. I’ll voice my opinion, vote for the people who may actually do some good therefore always lose, and continue to look for any avenue to get the hell out of Dodge. Like someone else said sorry for the rant. Disillusionment is a bitch
Well I signed and petitioned on that one too. I know that Casey and Schuster have got to be sick of getting e-mails and letters from me by now.
I’ll be starting my own country here in the next few weeks call snifslavia. You all are welcome. Article one of our constitution reads, “All men have the right to tobacco, whiskey, and wives with double D breasts”. I was thinking of a few other rights but really after Article one what else is there. By the way, anybody know where I go to get the necessary paperwork for starting a nation. Also, I might need a missile or two.
It’s a seemingly never ending cycle. Gov figures a way to make money through taxes, people figure out a way around it, gov figures out how to plug the gap, people find a new gap, etc. The so called war on drugs has cost billions of dollars. I bet fewer people use “Illegal” drugs than use tobacco.They’ll never stop us, just make it more dangerous for us and lucrative for unsavory characters, like Dillinger. We will find a way past the government leeches and nannies. We always do. In an election year, some people just propose crap so it looks good to their voters whether anything gets done or not.
what i love about this is that they are punishing a whole group for the actions of another barely related group. That alone should piss every single person off. Even people that are against tobacco should be pissed about the fact that pipe tobacco manufactuers are being punished for someone elses use of stupid loop-hole. Wouldn’t it make more sense to clearly define the types of tobacco.
hi snifs starting your own country this guy did it 30 or more years ago its stiil there http://www.sealandgov.org/ there is a load of videos heres one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDgg9WjkUdM he had pirate radio stations . tax free smokes. kidnappings and all sorts happened there
Given the anti corporate populist backlash that’s currently brewing, I’d be very careful right now if I was a monopolistic industrial conglomerate attempting to shove laws through that are so transparently designed to increase profits at the expense of regular working people. Altria already owns about half of the planet; getting greedy is what kills everybody, and one can only hope that they’ve reached the point where populist anger results in the passage of laws matching the fiction of corporate “personhood” with a death penalty for corporations that push this endless bullshit of constantly changing the law in order to restrict competition and increase their profits. In the meantime, relabel you pipe tobacco as cannabis, get a prescription from your doctor, and submit the bill to your health insurance company.
My cousin in New Mexico recently informed that he gave up the smoking tobacco and smokes marijuana now exclusively. (He used to smoke both.) Why is that? As he put it, “the *illegal* weed is now cheaper per ounce than the tobacco is.” True story.
Smokers die younger sounds like a good title for punk rock song.
U.S. Senators, like most members of the international tobacco control community, are impervious to reason and empirical evidence. I’m surprised, Roderick, that the powers that be in the EU are willing to admit that there are gradations of risk associated with the use of tobacco in its various forms. In the U.S., I’m afraid, it’s mainly about money. Cigarettes are readily availiable because so many government programs are financed through the excise taxes. I suspect that eventually U.S. smokeless tobacco users are eventually gonna have to sneeze out more money (probably much more money) in order to bribe the government to let us enjoy our olfactory tobacco pleasures.