COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) - An anti-tax group
urged legislators Wednesday to reject any proposal to raise the state
cigarette tax.
Lawmakers have discussed raising the cigarette tax, the nation's
lowest at 7 cents a pack, to pay for Medicaid programs. So far this
session, no bill has been introduced to do so.
Don Weaver, president of the South Carolina Association of Taxpayers,
said his group wanted to make their position known before anything is
proposed.
Weaver said a higher cigarette tax would be a regressive tax against
the state's poor. He also believes North Carolina's recent increase in
cigarette taxes will give South Carolina convenience stores along the
state's border a boost in cigarette and gasoline sales.
North Carolina's cigarette tax increased from 5 cents a pack to 30
cents last September. It will rise again to 35 cents in July. Georgia
charges 37 cents a pack. The national average is 92 cents per pack.
Officials in other states have said South Carolina's
lowest-in-the-nation tax makes it a popular state for bootleggers who
buy cigarettes cheap and sell them by the truckload in high-tax states.
