Who Pays Cigarette Taxes?

Smokers do! This is a tax on smokers, not tobacco companies – and in state after state, "smokers" is the only group being singled out to pay.

Smoker tax increases impose an unfair and selective tax burden on hard-working Americans engaging in a legal behavior. Exorbitant increases in smoker taxation is tax profiling. Just consider that:

• In 2006, government pocketed more tobacco revenue per minute ($61.896) than the average working family brought home in a year ($46,588).
• Since January 1998, the average per-pack price has nearly doubled – from $2.04 to $4.05 in 2006.
• Based on 2006 figures, more than 36.5 percent of adult smokers had incomes of less than $25,000 annually.
• Adult smokers make up about 20.5 percent of the population, yet smokers as a group are the only ones singled out for more and more "sin" taxes.

Tobacco excise taxes are regressive, unfairly forcing adult smokers to pay a greater percentage of their incomes in excise taxes than those in higher income groups. Because everyone pays the same rate regardless of income, Americans in low- and moderate-income brackets pay a greater share of their income in taxes simply because they have chosen to use a legal product. In addition, about 20.5 percent of the U.S. population pays 100 percent of the tobacco taxes, which is another inequity since all Americans share in the programs and benefits financed with tobacco tax dollars.