Store cheap cigarettes
"You won't believe the number of people who have stood at my counter
and said, 'Well, I'll have to start driving to Ohio or just order off
the Internet,' " said Cecil Johnson, owner of CJ's Smoke Shop,
located between Ypsilanti and Milan about 40 minutes from the Ohio line.Charles
Banas, a first-year student at Cooley Law School in Lansing, said he's
not worried about Michigan's higher cigarette tax because cheap cigarettes
online his family in Pennsylvania mails him cartons of his favorite
cigarettes, Jacks."I ship them in," the 22-year-old said this
week as he sat at a downtown Lansing bar. "My price limit would
be $5 if I had to get them from here. If it got to be more than that,
I would quit."Gov. Jennifer Granholm originally proposed the 75-cent
increase to encourage people to stop smoking cheap cigarettes online
and help fill a gap in the Medicaid budget left by fewer federal dollars.
The Democratic governor originally proposed the increase for the fiscal
year that begins Oct. 1, but suggested moving it up to July 1 to help
resolve a $250 million deficit in this year's budget.The higher tax
is cheap cigarettes online expected to bring in $97.1 million for the
current fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30. The Granholm administration
estimates it will bring in about $313 million in additional revenue
in the upcoming budget year.
The new tax will push the cost of a pack of Marlboro cigarettes - now
at about $4.33 - over $5. The tax on a carton of cigarettes, which includes
10 packs, will go from $12.50 to $20 on Thursday. A carton now costs
about $45.On top of the state tax on tobacco cheap cigarettes
online products, there also is a 39-cent federal tax and 20-cent
state sales tax tacked on to a pack of cigarettes.Mike James, a 20-year-old
telecommunications student at Michigan State University, said he might
have to smoke less than the two or three packs he now smokes a week
when the higher tax takes effect."There's no way I can afford it,"
said the Jackson native, sitting cheap cigarettes online
outside a coffee shop in East Lansing. "If it comes down to paying
rent and smoking, I won't buy cigarettes."If smokers buy fewer
cigarettes, stores won't need as much of the product and that could
hurt local distributing companies.
W.J. Burgess, vice president and general manager of cigarette distributor
Hartland Distributing, said he expects the higher tax will mean a hit
of at least 15 percent to his business. The last time the state increased
the cigarette tax, from 75 cents to $1.25 in August 2002, Burgess said
the company lost so much business it had to close its Monroe facility.
Michigan was one of 21 states to raise its tobacco tax two cheap
cigarettes online years ago, according to Arturo Perez, a fiscal
analyst for the National Council of State Legislatures. Last year, just
15 states increased their tobacco tax and fewer are expected to do so
this year, he said.
"There's still some states raising cigarette taxes, but all and
all we're probably seeing less ... because of cheap cigarettes
online the degree to which they have raised their taxes,"
Perez said.Some Republican lawmakers had opposed the 75-cent tobacco
tax increase, but the House and Senate gave it final approval last week
when Granholm appeared increasingly open to signing GOP-backed bills
aimed at improving cheap cigarettes online the economy
similar to those she vetoed last month.
A number of House Republicans sharply criticized the higher tax, suggesting
it would increase smuggling and counterfeit cigarettes. They attempted
to set aside 1 cheap cigarettes online percent of the new cigarette
tax revenue for more law enforcement, but the provision wasn't in the
cheap cigarettes online final version of the bill.Even
without additional funding, the Michigan State Police already are beginning
to train their troopers and other local law enforcement officers along
the state line to look for counterfeit and smuggled cigarettes, department
spokeswoman Shanon Akans said.
An Indian nation from Central New York is placing tobacco kiosks in
some Buffalo-area cheap cigarettes online convenience stores that will
allow the electronic mail ordering of tax-free cigarettes at a savings
of up to $20 a carton. The move, a first according to industry officials,
came cheap cigarettes online Tuesday, the day before today's 39-cents-per-pack
state tax increase. That increase brings the total state tax on a pack
of smokes to $1.50, the highest in the nation