New York Smokers Spend 25% of Income On Cigarettes

Despite assurances that high taxes on cigarettes help people to stop smoking, a new study finds that low income NY smokers pay 39% of state and city taxes on cigarettes, while paying $600 million in cigarette taxes annually.

Such figures suggest that high tax on addictive cigarettes is geared towards raising revenue rather than helping people to quit.

New York City has the highest taxes on cigarettes, with packs costing as much as $12 each. And while many people have switched to rolling their own or buying online, poorer New Yorkers are spending far too much and not getting anything in return, researchers said.

"The poor pay $600 million in cigarette taxes and get little help in quitting," said Russ Sciandra of the American Cancer Society.

Smokers that earn less than $30,000 per year pay 39 percent of state and city taxes on cigarettes, according to the study.

International Science Times

Poor people who smoke pay up to 25% of their income on cigarettes while the wealthier spend only 2%

A new study shows low-income smokers in New York spend 25 percent of their income on cigarettes, a finding that led a smokers' rights advocate to say it proves high taxes are regressive and ineffective.

Wealthier smokers - those earning $60,000 or more - spend 2 percent on cigarettes, according to the study.

CBS News

Audrey Silk , representative of the national smokers' rights organization CLASH, made the point that taxes on cigarettes isn't about helping people to stop. It is about enriching some people at the expense of smokers.

"It busts their theory that high taxes equal submission to their coercive measure at the same time," she said. "Ulterior motives abound ... to generate bad news as reason to tighten the screws and fish for more funding to do it with. They enrich themselves at the expense of those they helped stigmatize."

International Science Times

A few weeks ago, NY city banned large sodas.

What right does NY have to tell people what to drink?

What right does NY have to lay punitive taxes on smokers?

In light of little of the $600 million raised being spent on helping smokers stop, heavy taxes on smokers is not about helping people to stop, it is about treating low income smokers as cash cows.

reply to post by ollncasino
I'm a smoker and if my habit meant going without necessities due to high taxes, I'd be a moron. 25% of income, if true, is more a comment on the smokers than the taxman.

I could blame the State for their taxes and cry foul that I was being used as a revenue honey-pot. On the other hand, I'd be smarter by packing in the habit.

I`ve always known that it was just a scam to raise money.
i`ve always said that if the government really did care about our health they would outlaw tobacco and not make huge profits off of it.

Tobacco has no redeeming values, none. It`s a highly addictive deadly carcinogen nothing more, nothing less.
There are no other highly addictive deadly products with no redeeming value that are legal.
The government is making huge profits by allowing companies to sell a product who`s only purpose is to kill living things.
The government has outlawed many other deadly products but they continue to profit off of and allow this deadly product to be sold.

Originally posted by Kandinsky

I'm a smoker and if my habit meant going without necessities due to high taxes, I'd be a moron. 25% of income, if true, is more a comment on the smokers than the taxman.

If the authorities want smokers to stop, why does almost none of the $600 million raised go on helping smokers to quit?

Originally posted by Kandinsky

I could blame the State for their taxes and cry foul that I was being used as a revenue honey-pot. On the other hand, I'd be smarter by packing in the habit.

But you don't stop, do you?

That is because the demand for cigarettes is highly inelastic and the authorities treating smokers as cash cows know that.

Because smoking is a habit so hard to kick, demand for cigarettes is highly inelastic - meaning that large price changes induce only small changes in the quantity demanded.

Equivalently, only large price increases (decreases) will shrink (stretch) demand because the demand is inelastic to price changes.

Social factors and education are often significant determinants of which people start smoking, but for those who do smoke the number of cigarettes smoked is not highly sensitive to price.

MBATuck

Where I live (not in U.S.) I have seen similar attempts to raise taxes on cigarettes in order to discourage smoking. When that happens, sales of very cheap, smuggled cigarettes increase sharply. The government doesn't receive a penny from those sales.
I do not smoke anymore, but even when I did I would never smoke black market cigarettes, as you don't know how they were made, nor what could be in them. Poor people don't seem to care, though.
Right now, a legitimate pack of cigarettes costs from 1 to 3 bucks here, depending on the brand.

a pack a day at $10 a pack is $3,650 a year, so yeah if you make 15,000 a year you should quit

Originally posted by Tardacus

Tobacco has no redeeming values, none.

No redeeming value...

I don't about cigarettes but here in my neck of the woods, south Ga, when my daughter used to work for a local bank she used to tell me that it was very interesting how peoples will come to challenge charges when they were spending most of their income in not cigarettes but alcohol[/b, yeah lots of charges to accounts on Fridays for weekend Alcohol from the local liquor stores.

But then again this the south after all, a lot of restaurants, lots of churches and lot of booze.

In my home state they jacked up the taxes on cigarettes making them almost $8 per pack, so most people (myself included) started driving across state lines where they were $3 per pack. The tobacco companies were losing so much revenue in our area they had to bring down the prices to make up for the rise in the cigarette tax. They are now less than $5 per pack. The price has gone up (over several years) to $4 per pack across state lines, but still worth the 15 minute drive to save $10 per carton as we have several smokers in the family and we take turns making the trip twice per month.

reply to post by subject x


Your link won't load for me....it just spins.

One benefit I do know that was discovered...smoker's brains work faster than non-smokers....proven like back in 96 or 97. The synaptic activity is quicker in smokers than in non smokers. It also lowers the body temperature. perhaps it is like over clocking a processor...you have to cool it down more agressively than a processor at normal speed....thus the cooling effect.

I am a smoker...sadly. I have tried to quit a bazillion times and always end up picking them up again. it's an addiction...and one thing I can speak from experience here....once an addict, always an addict...the craving is always there...no matter how hard you try and deny it...sooner or later....you'll think you have it licked and will give it a go...and BOOM...right back to where you were when you first decided to quit.

Originally posted by subject x

Originally posted by Tardacus

Tobacco has no redeeming values, none.

No redeeming value...

re·deem/riˈdēm/
Verb:

1. Compensate for the faults or bad aspects of (something):

More deaths are caused each year by tobacco use than by all deaths from human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), illegal drug use, alcohol use, motor vehicle injuries, suicides, and murders combined.

Cigarette smoking causes about 1 of every 5 deaths in the United States each year.

www.cdc.gov...

Toothpaste - In India, powdered tobacco is rubbed on the teeth for cleaning.

Gophers and Moles - Did you know that gophers and moles hate tobacco?

readynutrition.com...

re·deem/riˈdēm/
Verb:

1. Compensate for the faults or bad aspects of (something):

Back when this business with taxing cigarettes to death started, I said it would hurt the economy. Now looking at where our economy is today, I wasn't too far off. No this is not totally responsible, but it certainly is pushing many further into the poor farm. And has turned the poor in my area into cigarette beggars. Totally serious.... Some have even "gone pro", and dress up in suits and dresses to impress, so they will be more likely to get one. One day alone I handed out cigarettes to 7 people. And I said wait a minute, that was $2.30 worth of cigs. I am done with that!

Anyways, back to the subject at hand. Excessive taxation of the poor is bound to have only one affect. Make them poorer! The government knows this, but doesn't care. Isn't there something in our constitution about excessive taxation? Oh that's right, our government already used that as toilet paper.

in my hometown legal smokes are $8-$11/per pack (depending on brand). now the price got almost that high back in the 90's and so smuggling cigarettes was a major issue, so much so that prices were reduced in an effort to stem that illegal activity.

now we don't have so much illegal imports but people go to the Indian reserves to buy their quasi-legal smokes. sadly tho those Indian smokes are EXTREMELY BAD in most cases (the cheaper you go the worse for they seem to be). i had smoked one of the mid range Indian smokes for awhile saving about $6/pack. then i noticed i was starting to flem up pretty bad, so i went back to the legal brands, the flem problem subsided. meanwhile a coworker could not afford to get the good brands as being a low wage earner and the only one in a family of 3 able to work so she was buying the cheapest Indian smokes (they were worse than stale cigarette butts, and yes i DO know how bad those are). i watched as she started hacking and constantly having issues breathing. within about 2 years of this she ended up with cpd, and needing oxygen. thus now she was unable to work, making them dependent on WELFARE. sadly she died a little over a year later. I FULLY BLAME THE GOVERNMENT FOR THIS SENSELESS DEATH.

see the thing is a many have pointed out, smokers are seen as an awesome cash cow for the government. once you are hooked it is extremely difficult to quit. this is easy to see as you find people out on the sidewalks in blizzards (due to anti-smoking laws). which of course just makes it easier to get sick thus CAUSING more missing work due to illness as well as ADDING to HEALTHCARE COSTS. but they KNOW that they can raise the price and not worry about too many people quitting so they can make yet more cash. see they know once they get us hooked we are theirs. i started because of advice from multiple teachers in school to try to fit in with everybody else, just making sure of a future cash cow i guess. how i wish i paid less attention to teachers sometimes. but hey they knew what was best didn't they? at least that was what they drummed into us.

high cigarette prices have nothing to do with making people quit. it is about making more money for the government's little pet projects. if you honestly think that it is, what do you suppose would happen if by some miracle every smoker was ABLE to stop right now, and they all did stop? pandemonium would ensue as all of a sudden a major portion of their cash would disappear. wonder what they would tax to take it's place? they would after all have to replace that big chunk of income somehow.

as it is all the HARSH anti-smoking laws and extreme taxing of cigarettes does is;
-make the poor yet poorer, don't give me the bs about if you were that hard up financially you would quit. NO you would be picking up butts off the ground taking the chance of getting sick or getting a disease. not to mention eating a lot of cheap non nutritional crap trying to make ends meet.
-adds yet even more to healthcare costs then they ever were.
-leads to a lack of productivity as workers catch colds, flue, pneumonia or even worse.
-adds to welfare costs
-adds to crime. as people start stealing smokes as they are worth their weight in gold. or stealing to support their habbit (hmm kinda like crime and illigal narcotics )

reply to post by generik


Oh gosh you just reminded me of somethiung I see REGULARLY! Sometimes I see this daily. Folks really do pick up butts off the streets and out of the ashtrays on trash cans. And it is not just the homeless. Heck one lady pounced on one that I threw in the street with 1/3 left. She commented, "OMG, you are throwing that away?" Wham, she was out in the middle of a busy road like lightning. (I feel like I am putting my life in jeopardy just to cross it.) And she was not a cigarette beggar. Just someone that saw an opportunity.

Before this tax business, I never saw it even once! Talk about improving the health of folks huh? Sheez....

I quit smoking about 6 months ago, I can relate to this: