There’s a bill currently in the US Senate (link below) which aims to raise taxes on tobacco products in the USA. The hikes are on all tobacco products, but since this is a snuff forum, I’ll just let you know about the snuff part. As it is now… (1) Snuff On snuff, $1.51 per pound and a proportionate tax at the like rate on all fractional parts of a pound. As amended in the new bill… (1) Snuff On snuff, $26.79 per pound and a proportionate tax at the like rate on all fractional parts of a pound. [url]http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c112:S.1403:[/url] (pardon the goofy link format, but it works)
So instead of buying US snuff and supporting my local economy through the tax, I buy it from Europe online. I’m happy to support the European economy but I fail to see how anyone thought this would increase tax revenues from snuff. I wonder if the drug companies are behind it. They have a huge stake in the “alternatives to smoking” business.
I agree completely. I too already buy from UK and had no problems with customs. No clue yet on if there is a pharma lobbyist connection. Wouldn’t surprise me one bit. That stuff is mega-over priced for what it is. One that I’m not sure on is if the law is being adapted for e-cigs. They’re hot and I could see a huge tax on the refills.
I can’t figure out how to pay my sucking taxes anyhow!
Well, it doesn’t really change much, seeing as they’ve already made it pretty much impossible to buy snuff in the US where you’d have to pay taxes on it immediately. All this is going to do, if it passes, is hurt Silver Dollar and Dark Horse.
This goes - again - in the fundamental wrong direction. The higher-ups dont understand, that with support for snuff and the spread of knowledge about it and his minimal health issues. With the right support, there could be a huge snuff revival - even in the states, more and more people take interest in it. The should look over to New Zealand (a small and not important country, i know) where the health ministry tells people the truth about snuff and the other “non smoke alternatives” and they just say: “In case you have a addiction for nicotine, you should go with snuff and benefit from the nearly non-existing health issue.”
Link didn’t work. Here is a new one: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s112-1403 Don’t get your panties in a twist yet, this is still in the committee stage.
@Prismaster: The main issue here is that the higher ups in government really don’t care about your health. They want more tax revenue; they’d tax the hell out of milk and eggs if they could, but since it’s a necessity, the general public would riot. Tobacco, on the other hand, is not a necessity, and the general population of tobacco-users don’t have the resources to properly fight the legislation. This snuff tax is definitely coming from Phillip Morris wanting to destroy any kind of competition…just my $0.02.
I know we aren’t supposed to be political here. I’am going to throw out a possible alternative theory to explain the tax. Right now no one wants to be the person raising taxes, but we need taxes for all the stuff we use everyday. If you tax a group that isn’t as widely known or thought about it slips under the radar. If you’re looking for a conspiracy here it is. People are so ignorant about so many things they want all the nice things goverments provide but don’t feel like paying for it, but someone has to get the shaft.
They want you to buy their NRT’s, patches, gums, cigarettes, DRUGS, etc. It really angers me… So I’ll get off this subject.
Transistor gets the mensch award of the day. For his very wise statement. Just to make sure it’s all clear, I mean that. As in man I try to be more like that and it isn’t always easy.
Then again the tax was really that low? That means this tax hasn’t been important untill the goverment is broke. It’s not been updated in a long time. If this tax had been thought about regularly and update like a lot of other taxes it wouldn’t seem so extreme. It’s the jump not where it’s landing that’s so terrible. Just something to think about. Plus I don’t think they’re thinking of us when this tax went up. I think they were thinking about the old grannies who dip snuff more so then anybody replacing their cigs. I bet the tax on cigs is going up even more, I didn’t read the link so I’am just guessing. Tobacco is just such an easy thing to tax, it’s easy to get support for it unlike raising taxes on milk. Though a tax on milk would make more money. Just another angle to increase the nuance of thought on the subject.
@bob mensch award? Thanks! What an obscure award! ha ha
For the sake of levity we certainly need some today. Here is an Onion article. http://www.theonion.com/articles/obama-proposes-tax-increase-on-meanest-2-of-popula,21112/
I agree with ALL of you re: pharma, ‘tax the few deviants’, and that its about $$$ not health. This DOES make me think, again, about the staggering size of the global “nicotine market”. Given that incentive and the threat snuff poses to the big stakeholders, I dont see a ‘snuff revival’ any time soon. Im happy its still legal and expect more price increases if it actually becomes more popular. Now that i have opened my mouth … I can follow @transistor
One big question is how the USA will handle dissolvables, tobacco products used orally but with significantly reduced risk due to less TSNAs. I can assume that the government doesn’t understand the limited risk of nasal snuffing. It’s too obscure. But when faced with the decision of how to tax safer tobacco products mandated by the federal government, this “tax the sin out of existence” rhetoric doesn’t hold up. It will be interesting to watch. If anything it shows how far advanced the Swedish government is when compared to the USA. They resolved the same crisis, what, some thirty years ago.
When they say snuff, they mean dip as well, right? Taxing nasal snuff alone would not do much of anything in the US.
@bob, the tax was last raised in April 2009. It gets raised on average every two years. And these have been incremental raises; nickel here, quarter there, etc. @xapken: this bill has absolutely nothing to do with reduced harm. It’s all about the cash. They’ve drawn up a special section of the bill to encompass snus, dissolvables, lozenges, pouches, portions, and all the “new wave” products to be taxed at $100 per thousand units. (Not cans or packages mind you, but per tablet/portion/lozenge/stick etc.) Meanwhile, premium cigars are exempt from any tax increase. Politics is a rich man’s game.