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On Friday, President Barack Obama is expected to sign into law a federal highway bill with a section that redefines tobacco manufacturers to include any business with a roll-your-own cigarette machine and taxes those products at the same rate as packaged smokes.
Since 2009, RYO stores have been selling cigarettes with far lower taxes than packaged cigarettes.
Why? In 2009, Congress more than doubled the federal excise tax on cigarettes, and, to bring RYO tobacco in line with packaged smokes, raised the tax on RYO tobacco from $1.10 a pound to $24.78 a pound. Yet it raised the tax on pipe tobacco by a far smaller amount from $1.10 to $2.83 a pound.
And RYO stores popped up across the country.
Since the 2009 tax increases, Congress Government Accountability Office says RYO tobacco sales have fallen 74 percent while pipe tobacco sales have exploded, jumping from 3.2 million pounds to 30.5 million pounds a year, according to government reports.
The GAO concluded the increase was due to consumers switching to pipe tobacco for their machine rolled cigarettes and not to a sudden jump in pipe smoking.
The GAO found that a carton of RYO cigarettes cost half as much, or even less, than a carton of discount cigarettes at a store because of the lower taxes.
Roll-your-own cigarette stores going up in smoke
On Friday, President Barack Obama is expected to sign into law a federal highway bill with a section that redefines tobacco manufacturers to include any business with a roll-your-own cigarette machine and taxes those products at the same rate as packaged smokes.
The move comes a month after Illinois increased taxes on such roll-your-own machine-made cigarettes.
Marcia Smith, 47, of Lake County, decided after the state tax increase that she should move her Smokes & Such tobacco shops in Skokie and Gurnee to Wisconsin, where taxes on rolled cigarettes are lower.
If Obama signs the law, she said shell shut her doors.
The machines, which cost about $33,000 each, allow customers to pick their own tobacco and pour it into a device that can roll the tobacco into a carton, or about 200 cigarettes, within minutes.
Valenti opened three Cig tobacco stores about a year ago to supplement his work as an independent construction contractor.
He operated two stores in Chicago and one in Worth but closed down one of his stores and moved two shortly before Cook County raised RYO taxes. Now, the issue has followed him out to the suburbs, where he lives and co-owns stores in west suburban Westmont in DuPage County and Mokena in Will County.
Theyre basically making us follow the same regulations as big tobacco, Valenti said, But [we cant] reap the same rewards.
Valenti calls it a killing of small businesses and said closing his stores means his 21 employees lose their jobs.
Lolberal dweebs are more lit up over having to show an ID to vote, than active destruction of economic activity by the fascist-in-chief.Already a thread on it . . . looks like no one responded there either.!
"The man who pushed for this bill is Sen. (Max) Baucus from Montana, and he received donations from Altria, a parent company of Philip Morris. Interestingly enough, there are also no RYO machines in the state of Montana. It really makes me question the morals and values of our elected speakers."
Don't blink but soon they'll be shutting down or handcuffing fast food companies, soda companies, junk food companies, etc across the nation in the name of saving taxpayer money for Obamacare "costs."
Everyone should eat healthy will be the salespitch so $8 Big Macs after taxes will be the way to quell your hunger for a Big Mac.
They've started in NYC with their attack on fast food and soda.
Don't blink but soon they'll be shutting down or handcuffing fast food companies, soda companies, junk food companies, etc across the nation in the name of saving taxpayer money for Obamacare "costs."
Everyone should eat healthy will be the salespitch so $8 Big Macs after taxes will be the way to quell your hunger for a Big Mac.
They've started in NYC with their attack on fast food and soda.
do you think they will shut down Popeye's and KFC?
I touched on this in one of the unemployment threads yesterday.
While number of people losing their jobs because of this is relatively small, I imagine it is of little consequence to them.
I also found this intriguing:
"The man who pushed for this bill is Sen. (Max) Baucus from Montana, and he received donations from Altria, a parent company of Philip Morris. Interestingly enough, there are also no RYO machines in the state of Montana. It really makes me question the morals and values of our elected speakers."
Why something like this was buried in a transportation bill is beyond me...
Of course I am no fan of the tactic of sticking little amendments onto bills, especially amendments that have absolutely nothing to do with the bill in question. It a sneaky practice I think should be abolished.
Both of you (first two posts)are idiots. Even the article is disengenuous. The ammendment was backed by the tobacco companies.. In the article it said that the tobacco companies did so to increase taxes. What a lying little slice of shit THAT is. Rolling your own saved smokers money that the tobacco companies wanted to pocket... that's all.. it has NOTHING to do with taxes...at least nothing concerning the tobacco companies.
The reason why Obama will sign this into law is that this is they way legislation is made. Are you suggesting that a major bill is held up or not signed because of the harm done to this very UNPOPULAR industry. Most people do not smoke at all. If you were so concerned about the rights of smokers there would be no smoking bans in bars and many cities thruout the country.
The hypocracy in this thread is suffocating.
Both of you (first two posts)are idiots. Even the article is disengenuous. The ammendment was backed by the tobacco companies.. In the article it said that the tobacco companies did so to increase taxes. What a lying little slice of shit THAT is. Rolling your own saved smokers money that the tobacco companies wanted to pocket... that's all.. it has NOTHING to do with taxes...at least nothing concerning the tobacco companies.
The reason why Obama will sign this into law is that this is they way legislation is made. Are you suggesting that a major bill is held up or not signed because of the harm done to this very UNPOPULAR industry. Most people do not smoke at all. If you were so concerned about the rights of smokers there would be no smoking bans in bars and many cities thruout the country.
The hypocracy in this thread is suffocating.
On Friday, President Barack Obama is expected to sign into law a federal highway bill with a section that redefines tobacco manufacturers to include any business with a roll-your-own cigarette machine and taxes those products at the same rate as packaged smokes.
Since 2009, RYO stores have been selling cigarettes with far lower taxes than packaged cigarettes.
Why? In 2009, Congress more than doubled the federal excise tax on cigarettes, and, to bring RYO tobacco in line with packaged smokes, raised the tax on RYO tobacco from $1.10 a pound to $24.78 a pound. Yet it raised the tax on pipe tobacco by a far smaller amount from $1.10 to $2.83 a pound.
And RYO stores popped up across the country.
Since the 2009 tax increases, Congress Government Accountability Office says RYO tobacco sales have fallen 74 percent while pipe tobacco sales have exploded, jumping from 3.2 million pounds to 30.5 million pounds a year, according to government reports.
The GAO concluded the increase was due to consumers switching to pipe tobacco for their machine rolled cigarettes and not to a sudden jump in pipe smoking.
The GAO found that a carton of RYO cigarettes cost half as much, or even less, than a carton of discount cigarettes at a store because of the lower taxes.
Roll-your-own cigarette stores going up in smoke - Chicago Sun-Times
"I can make a firm pledge. Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes." - Barack Obama
Both of you (first two posts)are idiots. Even the article is disengenuous. The ammendment was backed by the tobacco companies.. In the article it said that the tobacco companies did so to increase taxes. What a lying little slice of shit THAT is. Rolling your own saved smokers money that the tobacco companies wanted to pocket... that's all.. it has NOTHING to do with taxes...at least nothing concerning the tobacco companies.
The reason why Obama will sign this into law is that this is they way legislation is made. Are you suggesting that a major bill is held up or not signed because of the harm done to this very UNPOPULAR industry. Most people do not smoke at all. If you were so concerned about the rights of smokers there would be no smoking bans in bars and many cities thruout the country.
The hypocracy in this thread is suffocating.
