S-CHIP Required Reading

[mithrilG60]

Originally Posted by macpappy

I don't think/believe the government is going to place a tax increase on most manufacturers since they are not U.S. companies so their cost of business shouldn't go up. The same should be true on US companies, I haven't seen anything to suggest that their cost of business will go up because of SCHIP. The local B&M are going to be the ones hit first because they will have to pay the increase on everything they order. So, if you take a box of 20 cigars that normally has a wholesale price of say $80. Add to that the 40 cents per stick SCHIP tax increase ($8.00) and the wholesale cost goes up from $80 to $88 per box. I would hope that the B&M would do the right thing and only increase the retail price by the amount of the tax increase also. This would take a $5.00 cigar and raise the price to $5.40 per stick.

Now I am not sure how the wholesaler is affective by the tax increase since he is buy directly from the manufacturer. Will the wholesale be required to pay a tax on the price of the cigars from the manufacturer? My foggy understanding was that the tax would be based on what the wholesaler sold the cigars to the retailer for.

My understanding that the tax is applied each time tobacco changes hands. With cigars that will be at least 4 times (as product arrives in the US, as the importer sells to the wholesaler, as the wholesaler sells to the retailer as the retailer sells to the consumer) so the actual tax will be $1.60 per stick and not $0.40. I could be wrong though as, being Canadian, SCHIP makes 0 difference to me one way or the other. Besides SCHIP is still a joke of a tax compared to what we're hit with up here so I'd still count yourselves lucky.

[macpappy]

Originally Posted by mithrilG60

My understanding that the tax is applied each time tobacco changes hands. With cigars that will be at least 4 times (as product arrives in the US, as the importer sells to the wholesaler, as the wholesaler sells to the retailer as the retailer sells to the consumer) so the actual tax will be $1.60 per stick and not $0.40. I could be wrong though as, being Canadian, SCHIP makes 0 difference to me one way or the other. Besides SCHIP is still a joke of a tax compared to what we're hit with up here so I'd still count yourselves lucky.

The explanation given to my local B&M owner is that it is only going to be applied to the wholesale price paid by the retailer.

You may have higher taxes but don't you have that wonderful socialized health care for everyone?(note the sarcasm, please)