Dear Lucy, its time for you to start a Million Cats March to Washington! ;))
Tobacco Firms Save $1 Billion With Kitty Litter in Cigars
By Anna Edney - Mar 1, 2013 12:01 AM ET
A dozen tobacco companies have gained from a legal loophole that helped them avoid as much as $1.1 billion in U.S. taxes.
Their secret: Using fillers such as the clay found in cat litter or stuffing the products with more tobacco to tip the scales in their favor. The heavier weight let the companies sidestep a 2,653 percent increase in a federal excise tax, taking advantage of a 2009 law that spared so-called big cigars.
There were 22 companies producing small cigars in the year before the law created the new tax structure, according to data from the Treasury Department’s Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau. Twelve of those companies, none of which the government would name, either switched to or increased production of large cigars in the year following the law, the bureau found.
“It shows what length the tobacco companies will go to avoid taxes and regulation that were designed to improve public health without regard to their customers,”
Danny McGoldrick, vice president of research at the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids in Washington, said in a telephone interview. “They should equalize the tax to stop the shenanigans.”
The practice has contributed to a doubling in sales of the weightier tobacco products and slowed a decade-long decline in tobacco use. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in an Aug. 2 report blamed sharp increases in adult consumption of pipe tobacco and cigarette-like cigars since 2008 on the 2009 law “that created tax disparities between product types.”
more:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-01/tobacco-firms-save-1-billion-with-kitty-litter-in-cigars.html
DO SOMETHING!
| 