Excise tax hike on cigarettes irrational choice for Washington

The Washington Legislature appears again poised to go to the cigarette excise tax well. A proposal to hike the state’s excise tax by another 50 cents — to $3.52 per pack — would exacerbate an already large smuggling problem and offer little in the way of gains to public health.

We have created a statistical model to measure the degree to which cigarette smuggling occurs in most American states. Through 2013, our model reported that Washington had the third-highest smuggling rate among 47 states. Our estimate shows that, of all the cigarettes consumed in Washington that year, 46.4 percent were obtained as a result of tax evasion or avoidance. The state’s smuggling rate would be four points higher if we did not subtract out cigarette smuggling exports going to Canada.

 

http://watchdog.org/205831/excise-tax-hike-cigarettes-irrational-choice-washington/