Tennessee smokers will begin paying more for cigarettes on July 1 under a bill signed into law last week by Gov. Bill Haslam.
The 15 cents-per-pack increase is the first of three that will total 35 cents by July 1, 2017.
The change is technically not a tax hike. What lawmakers have done is increase the minimum price mark-up over retailers’ “cost of doing business” for buying and selling a 20-cigarette pack.
The minimum now is 8 percent, or 41 cents per pack. That minimum will rise in three steps to 15 percent, or 76 cents per pack, over two years, according to a legislative fiscal analysis.
It’s an 85 percent increase in the minimum mark-up and its expected to sweeten retailers’ bottom lines by $129.22 million in year three, according to the analysis by the General Assembly’s Fiscal Review Committee.
This is the first change in (continue reading)