Proposed Maryland Tobacco Tax Increase is Anti-Business
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Kevin Godbee - Mar 2, 2011
- 1 min read
A proposed 500 percent excise tax increase on ‘other tobacco products’ could decimate Maryland’s cigar and pipe tobacco businesses, according to the International Premium Cigar & Pipe Retailers Association.
Maryland House Bill 853 and Senate Bill 654 both propose to increase the excise tax rate on tobacco products other than cigarettes from 15 percent to 90 percent with a $3 cap on cigars.
"When will legislators realize that tax increases like this never produce the revenues predicted and always result in negative consequences like lost jobs and businesses?" asked Chris McCalla, legislative director of the IPCPR. "In a small state like Maryland, tobacco customers can easily cross to another state or make their purchases online and pay little to no state or local taxes."
According to the Tax Foundation, a nonpartisan educational organization founded in 1937, Maryland was the only state to raise every major tax in 2008 in order to fund new spending programs including doubling of its cigarette tax from $1 to $2 per pack. The Foundation said the tax increase served to introduce record levels of bootlegged product into the state, hurt local businesses by sending thousands of the state’s smokers to surrounding states to purchase their tobacco products, and generated only half the revenue increase predicted by tax supporters.
In addition, the Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2009 is funded solely by excise taxes on tobacco products. CHIP raised federal taxes on cigarettes to more than $10 per carton and on roll-your-own tobacco from about $1.10 per pound to $24.78 per pound – a 2,253 percent increase.
"Now the Maryland legislature is considering raising excise taxes yet again on other tobacco products from the current 15 percent of the wholesale price to 90 percent," McCalla said.
McCalla believes the only result that would be sure to take place from such an action is the further destruction of Maryland small businesses, which includes the loss of jobs and state, federal and local tax revenues.
"Premium tobacco products like pipes and cigars are highly sensitive to price increases because they are more a choice than a habit. They are adult products that make ordinary moments special and special moments extraordinary, like a fine wine," he said.
McCalla urged Maryland smokers and nonsmokers alike to tell their state senators and delegates to vote no on tax increases such as these.
Written by Kevin Godbee
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Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 605. Our featured interview tonight is with Pete Prevost. Pete is a pipe maker and the President of the BriarWorks pipe factory in Columbia Tennessee. BriarWorks is a a pipe maker co-op with several other pipe makers, including Todd Johnson, who co-founded it with Pete. Brian and Pete will be talking about what’s new at BriarWorks, and how they are getting ready to attend the Chicago pipe show. (This was recorded before the show that took place last weekend.) At the top of the show, Brian will give his report of his travels and what happened at the Chicago show.
When I first started with the pipe as a quirky and precocious teen, the only tutelage I had at my disposal were scenes from old movies in which a well dressed chap would stick his pipe into a pouch, scoop tobacco into the bowl and press it down unceremoniously with his thumb. Then, with great flourish, he’d strike a match and light the thing with all manner of cinematic excess, puffing up vast clouds of smoke falling just short of completely obscuring his visage. While it may look good on film, it’s a terrible approach to actually enjoying the thing. Somehow, though, this “technique” seems to have survived in the contemporary vernacular, at least to some extent, even with bit-loads of information handily at our fingertips that should dissuade us from the practice. But, at the time, this misguided approach was all I had; it’s no wonder my early days of puffing were fraught with difficult lighting, harsh, bitter smokes and tongue bite, all culminating in a fireproof mass of ye old soggy dottle in the bottom of the bowl. Ultimately, the resulting frustration made me give up the pipe, at least for a while. While the idea of it was still very appealing, the practice of it was not. It wasn’t until a few years later when, still full of curiosity and romantic notions of pipe smoking, I wandered into a real tobacconist’s shop, and learned my “method” was a long way from the techniques that would bring me to any sort of pipe smoking bliss. So, after my poor start, and under the guidance of someone who actually seemed to know how to do it right, I was given the opportunity to approach the process anew, this time with much greater success. 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Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 604. Our featured interview tonight is with Jon David Cole. JD is the Owner/Tobacconist at The Country Squire in Jackson, MS, and he is the former co-host of the podcast, Country Squire Radio, which ended their 10-year run last year. We’ll have JD with the “From the Country Squire” segment talking about all the new things happening at the store and in the business in general. At the top of the show, we’ll continue our audio tour of Brian’s pipe collection.
Before we begin, I should tell you: this tobacco review is being written by an A.I. Not the fancy new GPTs or their ilk; no, this is last century’s meat-and-bone, all-organic model. To be fair, a large part of what we call knowledge is merely the accumulated perceptions and impressions gathered from a life wandered through, synthesized into a spongy mass of what-it-is-that-we-think-that-we-know. The algorithm for this prompt is simple enough: pump thousands of bowls of smoldering plant matter into a gaping maw, cross-reference the chemical sensations with all other matter previously ingested or inhaled, sieve it all through the diffuse and fractal twin lens of memory and emotion, and churn out a panoply of adjectives that attempts to convey the sensations to someone who hasn’t experienced it yet. Odds are that a diligently trained monkey could succeed half the time; if this reviewer nears fifty-one percent then that would qualify as an unrivaled success. 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A first whiff from the tin releases the aromas of shoe leather and hide glue in a base of clay soil with a campfire wafted over it like last night’s beach party. Once it’s been accustomed to oxygen again, subtle hints of sweetness poke through from the Virginias: lemon rind, light milk chocolate, the dregs of a peaty Scotch, and muddled cherry. Old regulars like fresh-sawn oak and tilled earth are there, of course, with distinct notes of truffle, creosote, damp peat, and pine bark mulch. As an aside, I’ve been re-potting my camellias and the similarity of aroma to the ericaceous soil mix is notable; the Katerini really brings the unique depth of its vegetal complexion when supported by the Rustica and afforded more voice in the mix. The smoky Cyprian Latakia, in turn, is backed by equal earthiness from the Rustica, which overall exhibits a profile similar to dark-fired Kentucky; it leans more toward the woody and vegetal end of that spectrum, echoing and amplifying those traits of the other constituents. The tobacco is presented pressed and cut into a couple of thick, hearty flakes in the tin, lightly moist and easily crumbled to prepare—I prefer mine with a bit of drying time. The out-of-this-world tin art for this episode in the series is Major O’Meara smoking a cavalier. In the absence of confirmation, I’m going to hazard a guess he’s of the Ithklur species. The first taste from the light is sweet, with hints of that milk chocolate dancing around the edges. The Virginia leads the smoke through the top of the bowl, and orchestrates it well. 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I started out my tasting in cobs, then cut short an unpleasant bowl in a meer, and finally landed on my best instrument with the lovely Dunhill 4427 pictured, a quaint group 4 shell briar with a gentle curve and Cumberland stem supporting a perfectly executed acorn bowl. It surprised me here, as I’ve learned through the years that I generally have the best experience with English blends in large, wide bowls. With this blend it seems that to get the best out of the Katerini’s somewhat diaphanous influence the smaller bowl fared much better. Room note is very English, so the company you keep will either love it or hate it, and it doesn’t linger too much. I find it paired best with a strong coffee; Sumatran beans complement the flavors well, as do Ethiopian if a lighter brew is preferred. Overall impressions of the blend are that it’s a curiously interesting take on the English genre, almost a reductive reconstruction of the theme using the unique components. 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Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 603. Our featured interview tonight is with Rick Newcombe. Rick is a well-known author of several pipe books, and he is currently working on his third book. He is a prominent collector of Danish pipes, and vintage tobaccos. He has traveled the world visiting pipe makers, and learning their different techniques. He is also the founder and chairman of Creators Syndicate, which currently represents more than 200 writers and artists. At the top of the show we’ll have a Pipe Smoking 101 segment discussing best pipe shapes and sizes that are best suited to certain types of tobacco.
Thanks for staying on top of these issues and reporting them. It is both a reminder and a wake-up call for all of us: smokers and non-smokers alike. When legislators kill the goose that was laying the golden eggs, they’ll turn their attention to other taxable activities. Then, even non-smokers will have some “skin in the game.”
The solution lies in fiscal responsibility in government: spending less; streamlining or privatizing bloated bureaucracies; and finding creative ways to generate revenue, like stimulating business with tax incentives, not squelching it with tax levies. As things are, the morons in office only see one solution, tax increases that strangulate the economy.