Jump to full article: FACT Alliance, 2003-01-14
Intro: New York State Taxes on Cigarettes
New York collected $999 million in cigarette taxes in 2000-01.(The Sunday Gazette, July 14, 2002)
New York State charges a $1.50 tax on all packs of cigarettes, one of the highest excise taxes in the country.
A study released in January 2003 by Ridgewood Economic Associates, an economic consulting firm, estimates that up to $609 million in cigarette taxes went uncollected in New York State in 2001.
If taxes were collected as permitted by law in 2001, taxable cigarette sales in New York State would have been higher by between 41 million and 47.5 million cartons, the study showed.
At the New York excise tax rate of $11.10 per carton (WHY NOT $15?), those cartons would have generated additional tax receipts of between $455 million and $527 million. Applying sales taxes of 4 percent to an average sales price of $43.13 per carton, revenues would have jumped to a grand total of $526 million to $609 million.
Those additional tax revenues would have added $298 million to $345 million to the state's General Fund, plus $228 million to $264 million to the HCRA (Health Care Reform Act) Fund.
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