Jump to full article: Buffalo (NY) News, 2001-12-04
Author: TOM PRECIOUS / News Albany Bureau
Intro: Smokers across New York, already the highest taxed in the nation, soon could be paying another 39 cents per pack to light up.
The Pataki administration, desperate for cash for the upcoming 2002 state budget, is eyeing a sharp hike in cigarette taxes that would require smokers to pay $1.50 in taxes for every pack - boosting the cost of brand-name cigarettes to more than $5 per pack in some places, according to sources.
A tax hike from the current $1.11 per pack to $1.50 would keep New York's cigarette taxes the highest in the nation. . .
With the governor set to release his budget plans this month and possibly as soon as next week, more than a month early, his fiscal advisers are pushing the cigarette tax increase to help close a budget hole of as much as $9 billion - a direct hit from the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, according to lobbyists and others aware of the plan.
A cigarette tax hike will lead to further complaints by the tobacco and retail industries, which have long tried to convince tax regulators that higher taxes push smokers to purchase their cigarettes from bootleggers, Internet sites and Indian reservations.
Health groups, however, say higher taxes push more people - especially teenagers - to quit smoking.
The Pataki administration Monday did not rule out a cigarette tax hike.
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