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| Cigarette Tax Increase Approved by IL Senate Committee |
A pack of smokes could eventually cost $1 more, under a proposal which is headed to the Illinois House floor. The bill, which has already passed the Senate, would raise the state's cigarette tax by 50 cents per pack in each of the next two years. That means a pack would cost roughly $10 in Chicago and $7.50 in the rest of the state.
The money raised, an estimated $350 million per year, would "leverage federal Medicaid reimbursement dollars...to reimburse health care providers under the Public Aid Code, All Kids program, Children's Health Insurance Program, and for pharmaceutical assistance for seniors and the disabled," according to the bill's House sponsor, Rep. Karen Yarbrough (D-Maywood).
Kathy Drea, lobbyist for the American Lung Association, says the new tax, if it goes into effect, would mean a 12.5 percent reduction in youth smoking, possibly discouraging more than 100,000 Illinois children from picking up the habit.
The bill's opponents say all the tax would do is encourage border crossings and bootlegging. Bud Kelley is part of the association that represents tobacco distributors and says his recent visit to a "Dirt Cheap" store near the St. Louis airport showed 36 of the 47 cars in the parking lot had Illinois license plates. Missouri's cigarette taxes are already much lower than Illinois'. Right now, the state cigarette tax in Missouri is 17 cents per pack. Illinois' is now 98 cents.
S.B. 44 has passed the House Human Services Committee, 4-3.
(Illinois Radio Network) |
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| 04 30 09 by Newsroom |
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