(Image source from: Maryland plans to increase Tobacco Tax})
Maryland lawmakers are planning to negotiate the proposal to increase the state's tobacco tax on a pack of cigarettes by $1. A hearing has been scheduled on Wednesday in the House Ways and Means Committee in the state. The move is an effort to discourage Marylanders from smoking.
According to the new measures, the tax will be raised from $2 to $3. The tax on the other tobacco products can also increase, if the bill passed. The governor will need to include a funding of at least $21 million annually, for the Tobacco Use Prevention and Cessation campaign.
In 2007, the lawmakers of Maryland, had last voted to increase the state's cigarette tax from $1 a pack to $2 a pack.
Mr. Luedtke, Montgomery Democrat, said that, “the reality is, as a taxpayer and a nonsmoker, you are paying to subsidize the health care costs of all the smokers in terms of Medicaid costs, Medicare costs. That does not make sense. All the tobacco tax does is asks smokers to pay their own way.”
Nandini
