In talking with my local B&M owner yesterday, he said the cigar manufacturers are looking at all kinds of ways to keep this tax effect to a minimum. For example, he said he's talked to some reps who were indicating that some manufacturers were looking at breaking down the actual cost of a box of cigars in order to reduce the effective actual cost of the tobacco in the box alone and thus reducing the effect of the pass-along tax.
For example, a box of premiums tubos consists of a few dollars worth of wood for the box, the glass for the tubes, etc.--trying to do what ever they could to identify the exact price/value of the tobacco in the box alone and then pay the tax based on that, not the entire package.
He seemed to think it was a possibility to do that. I don't know, but thought I'd pass it along for
