Tagged: cigarette tax

Despite being rejected by voters last month, there’s a new proposal to raise Missouri’s cigarette tax.

It’s part of a bill prefiled in the Missouri Senate that would also raise the state’s sales tax by one-half percent while fixing the state income tax rate at a flat 4 percent.  The proposal would raise the cigarette tax by 26 cents, from its current 17 cents per pack to 43 cents per pack.  It’s sponsored by Republican Senator John Lamping of St. Louis County.

Missouri voters have narrowly defeated an effort to raise the state’s tobacco tax.

If Proposition B had passed, the tax on a pack of cigarettes would have gone from the lowest in the nation, at 17 cents, up to 90 cents.

Missouri has the lowest cigarette tax of any state in the country – and some of the highest smoking and lung cancer rates. A measure on tomorrow’s ballot – Proposition B – is aiming to change that.

While previous efforts to raise Missouri’s cigarette tax have failed, proponents of this increase are more optimistic.