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State Cigarette Excise Taxes

Cigarette Excise Tax State Ranking

Cigarette excise tax facts

Cigarette Excise Tax State Ranking As of July 2006
Rhode Island	2.46		New Hampshire	.80
New Jersey	2.40		Kansas	.79
Washington	2.025		Wisconsin	.77
Maine	2.00		Utah	.695
Michigan	2.00		Nebraska	.64
Montana	1.70		Wyoming	.60
Alaska	1.60		Arkansas1	.59
Hawaii	1.60		Idaho	.57
Massachusetts	1.51		Indiana	.555
Connecticut	1.51		Delaware	.55
New York2	1.50		West Virginia	.55
Texas3	1.41		South Dakota	.53
Pennsylvania	1.35		North Dakota	.44
Ohio	1.25		Alabama4	.425
Minnesota	1.23		Georgia	.37
Vermont	1.19		Iowa	.36
Arizona	1.18		Louisiana	.36
Oregon	1.18		Florida	.339
Oklahoma	1.03		North Carolina	.35
District of Columbia	1.00		Virginia	.30
Maryland	1.00		Kentucky5	.30
Illinois6	.98		Tennessee7	.20
New Mexico	.91		Mississippi	.18
California	.87		Missouri8	.17
Colorado	.84		South Carolina	.07
Nevada	.80

Cigarette excise tax facts

• State excise taxes range from $0.07 per pack in South Carolina to $2.46 per pack in Rhode Island.
• The federal cigarette excise tax is $0.39 (as of January 1, 2006).
• At least ten states, Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Oklahoma, Oregon and Utah, use cigarette excise tax revenue to fund their tobacco control programs.
• The U.S. Center for Disease Control & Prevention estimates that smoking-caused health cost total $8.44 per packed sold and consumed in the United States
• Adolescents and young adults are more responsive than adults to changes in cigarette prices.
• Increasing a cigarette excise tax can result in stockpiling of cigarettes prior to the implementation of the tax and a temporary drop in sales immediately following the tax increase.

Sources:

NCSL Staff Research

Federation of Tax Administrators, State Excise Tax Rates on Cigarettes. January 2006.

State Legislated Actions on Tobacco Issues: 2005; The American Lung Association.

Reducing Tobacco Use: A Report of the Surgeon General, Department of Health and Human Services; Office of Smoking and Health; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2000.

Footnotes:

1.  Dealers pay an additional fee of $1.25/1,00 cigarettes

2.  Counties and cities may impose an additional tax up to $1.50 per pack

3.  Effective Jan 1, $0.08, then, $0.55 on July, 06; with another increase of $0.25 in Jan., 07; and the final increase of $0.25 in Jan., 08

4.  Counties and cities may impose an additional tax up to $0.06 per pack

5.  Dealer pay addition enforcement and administrative fee of $0.1 per pack

6.  Counties and cities may impose an additional tax of $0.10 per pack

7.  Counties may impose an additional tax of $0.1 and dealers pay an additional enforcement fee of $0.05 per pack

8.  Counties and cities may impose an additional tax up to $0.07 per pack