Increase of Tobacco Tax is Bringing Employment Down

Picture yourself some farmers to become bankrupt, or scores of people who were dismissed from a factory they were working whole life at. Picture yourself scores of jobs to be moved out of the country to places where the workforce is cheaper. All this will take place when a single tax is increased. Are you enjoying the picture?  

The most disappointing is that the tax is about to increased by over 200 percents. It is appallingly, isn't it? Let me tell you that it's a cigarettes tax. Now you're changing your mind and the increase sounds reasonable in case you're not a smoker. However, let's inspect how cigarettes and other tobacco products influence our economy. Briefly, the job places are vanishing from US every time when the tobacco tax is increased.  

The tobacco industry employs many people,including those who grow the tobacco leaves, dry them up, produce the cigarettes, sell them in the stores, control the quality, etc. When the taxes on tobacco are raised, the price of cigarettes is also raised and the numbers of customers is decreasing, because they can not buying cigarettes. Then the employees who are working into the tobacco industry, start loosing their salary. Well, companies can not pay to workers when their products can not be sold and they don't bring in an income. 

This situation is taken from the history.Many states have raised their taxes on tobacco back in 2007. Several months later more then 2000 jobs were lost only at Phillip Morris factory. Add to this number of lost jobs the large number of farmers and sellers who made their earnings due to cigarettes.  

Many consider that jobless people are worth the fact that fewer cigarettes are sold and think that the number of smokers is decreasing. They don't know how wrong they are. Smokers simply start buying cheaper cigarettes. Those cheap cigarettes are manufactured in such countries as Brazil, Columbia, India,etc. Smokers find ways to buy cigarettes online. Moreover US tobacco companies start looking for a cheaper way to produce their cigarettes and as the rule buy their raw materials at foreign countries.  

As the result workplaces are lost but the US citizens are smoking cigarettes of lower quality. But they do keep smoking, so the main purpose of the tax raise is not gained. So, is it worth ruining the local economy? My answer is no. You told to smokers all the disadvantages of the smoking, the consequences, you showed them the bad side of cigarettes. Now it's their turn to choose. Let people smoke and to work!   

Published: Tuesday, April 5, 2011