I received two calls from the Board of Equalization late this week claiming information in a story I wrote about the latest tobacco tax bill was wrong. The calls were from Venus Stromberg, spokeswoman, and Brian Miller, tax counsel.
Photo courtesy Sudipto_Sarkar, flickr
SB 768, by state Sen. Kevin de León, D-Los Angeles, would increase the state’s cigarette tax another $2 a pack from the current 87 cents. That would be a 230 percent hike, to $2.87.
I wrote, “The State Board of Equalization has found that California will actually lose hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue if SB 768 passes. Even legislators have become weary of funding programs using tobacco tax revenue because of its instability.”
But the BOE employees who called me said the tax revenues actually will be more than a $300 million net gain through the special fund SB 768 will create.
Yet according to a study by the BOE itself, programs funded by cigarette taxes have experienced a “funding gap” due to cigarette sale decreases. And the revenue raised from the cigarette tax in California has decreased, according to a Federation of Tax Administrators study, “The Tax Burden on Tobacco.”
However, the BOE analysis of the tobacco tax which I linked to in my first story is terribly confusing and also makes it sound as if the state will take a hit.
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