For the first time in 33 years, South Carolina is going to raise its cigarette tax. State senators voted Thursday afternoon to override Gov. Mark Sanford's veto of a 50-cents-per-pack cigarette tax increase.
The governor vetoed the tax hike Tuesday, saying he would support it only if there were a corresponding tax cut somewhere else. The House overrode the veto Wednesday by a vote of 90-29. Senators voted 33-13 to override.
The higher tax will hit smokers July 1.
"Just think it’s a little bit too much and there’s better ways to raise money for that kind of stuff," said smoker Colby Richards after she was told about the coming increase.
The higher tax is expected to raise about $125 million, most of which will go to Medicaid to offset the loss of federal stimulus money next year. $5 million will go to cancer research, another $5 million will go to stop-smoking programs and another $1 million will go to market the state's agricultural products.
Sen. Tom Alexander, R-Walhalla, has been working for years to get the tax increase passed. Before the vote on the Senate floor, he told colleagues the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids estimates the higher tax will keep about 23,000 children in South Carolina from starting to smoke and will encourage about 13,000 adults to quit.
"To me, that makes this worth doing for the future of South Carolina,” he said, right before the vote.
After the vote, Kelly Davis, with the SC Tobacco Collaborative, which has been pushing for the tax, said, “So you may be thinking, ‘Well I don’t smoke so how does this affect me?’ But according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, every household in South Carolina pays a hidden fee of $578 per year to cover tobacco-related healthcare costs in our state.”
Convenience store owners say the higher tax will hurt their business and force them to lay off employees at stores that border North Carolina and Georgia. North Carolina's tax is 45 cents per pack and Georgia's is 37 cents. The fear is that smokers will cross the border to buy their cigarettes, further hurting the state's economy and costing jobs.
But Davis says that has not happened in other states when they've raised their cigarette tax and, with the high price of gas, it's unlikely a smoker will drive across state lines to save the few cents difference between the states' taxes.
Email
Facebook
Google
Twitter
Favorites
More
Advertisement