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If finalized, this is a huge win for improved health of Hoosiers and for perseverance of the advocates who have been pushing legislators to support such rational measures for years. Congratulations to all those who have fought so hard for so long. It is sad, however, that it took a financial reason and not a health reason to finally get the this bill across the finish line.
In the same bill, they also cut the funding given to county health departments ($75 million this year) from the $150 that had been planned, first to $100, now down to $40 million. But hey, they still found the money for the rich to get school vouchers!
So it’s good news that they’re trying to reduce smoking with a tax increase, but they have a long way to go to prove they actually care about the health of Hoosiers.
Rational? How about adding a few bucks tax to anything with sugar in it if we’re going down this “tax the unhealthy” route
Exactly Gregg!
Now 16% of the population will pay over $800 Million for the remaining 84% of the population.
A 30-40% tax rate on a commercial product probably sets a new record.
Marijuana would include 60-80% of the population paying tax, and at half the tax rate of this new cig tax.
At least the Chamber and anti smokers will be happy.
I’m actually okay with taxing and regulating unhealthy products like sugar/candy, soda, cigarettes, alcohol, and weed. I honestly think it would be a good thing if cities and/or counties could implement sugar/soda/candy taxes that fund things like trails and public parks.
This won’t make a dent in the gap.
In response to Kevin P.,
The $2/pack is the national average for state sales tax on cigarettes. It is not a new high. It is far from it. The Indiana tax rate is low which is why the smoking rate is above the national avaerage. See this link to the cigarette sales tax by state from NPR )https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/21/c0/f6c70d504795bd8527bcb883ce20/tobacco-tax-map-2024.pdf). There are several other maps by other organizations out there with the same information.
How about a tax of vaping products?
Hope about FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY?? Not a smoker but on taxes on EVERYTHING we do is way outta hand. Disgusted with our local and state government “representatives” – DO THE HARD WORK!!!
Fiscal responsibility? How about stop cutting taxes so low that we aren’t now dependent on sin taxes like tobacco and the lottery to run the state.
Remember when we were told the lottery wouldn’t be part of the budget and it would only be spent on education?
The issue isn’t that we spend too much, it’s that we don’t collect enough. Our roads are awful. Our kids are poorly educated and we don’t send enough of them to higher education to get high paying jobs. We steal money from the old to pay for our hospitals. Our legislators should have the courage to tell us this.
+1 Joe
Here’s what Senator Ron Alting of Lafayette had to say about it:
“They’re waving a flag, saying we’re the ones cutting your taxes … when what they’re doing is shifting everything on to the local government and saying, ‘You be the bad guys. You add the taxes needed to run a city or run a school’”
No Hoosier is safe from bad decisions made by our state government until our legislators go home for the year.
https://www.basedinlafayette.com/p/sen-alting-on-sb1-statehouse-just
Kudos to those objective commenters above. No tax should be imposed on a single part of the population. This means an additional $730 EXTRA a year on about 800-900,000 residents, or $1,095 total. This last minute, cowardly effort to ‘fill the shortfall’ because of poorly reviewed legislation wipes out any ‘presumptive property tax reduction’. A shell game. Booze, licensing fees etc etc etc should have been included……not just tobacco. Irresponsible and disproportionately punitive. It’s simply prohibition by taxation. On top of everything else, it is likely revenues on the cash cow which is tobacco will likely go DOWN. End result: A lot of poorer people, grumpier people on withdrawal and less tax money. The State had a ‘golden goose’ but decided to eat it for dinner.
Nobody is ever happy with a final budget. The end result is a compromise. Good work by our state legislators.
Nope. They did even worse than usual which is saying something.
Smart, prudent legislators would have waited to pass property tax cuts until after they had seen it the budget forecast would have afforded them the opportunity.
Our legislators rammed through property tax cuts just days before the forecast, like they knew bad financial news was coming and the optics would be bad to pass a tax cut they couldn’t pay for.
So we’re going to take funding from some essential services, but we’re still going to pay for wealthy people to send their kids to private schools? Let’s be clear, the expansion of the voucher program is to eliminate currently existing income limits for recipients. You’re giving $100 million to people who don’t need it. How does that make sense at all?
No good private school would take vouchers and accept state over reach
Frankie, Roncalli and Heritage Christian are two of the biggest recipients of voucher dollars. I don’t believe the state has any say over those schools.
This is Trump math. If you increase the tax by $2 (I’m not opposing), then I would say a large portion of smokers will cut back or quit. Therefore, there isn’t $810million to collect.
Just like the tariff. If production comes state side (I think this is great), the calculation of tariff collection is significantly reduced.
Neither example is calculated correctly.
Not quite. Google “inelastic demand”.
So many stable geniuses. I can’t keep up.
Seriously? You couldn’t find the political will to do this when the health care community asked for it to curb smoking, but now that you need the money, you are going after it this way?