Tobacco tax-car tax trade off

Del. Patrick Hope, D-Arlington, is sponsoring legislation that would raise the state's cigarette tax in order to decrease the car tax Virginians pay every year.

Hope wants to increase the state tax on a pack of cigarettes by $1.15 to bring it from $.30 a pack to $1.45 a pack. Hope then wants to use those proceeds to cut the car tax by more than half.

Examples given for by Hope for the reduction of the car tax show the cost annual cost for a car worth $5000 going from $61.25 a year to $29.40 and for a $10,000 car the tax would drop from $122.50 to $58.80.

"That's real money in the pockets of Virginians," Hope said. "We're talking about putting money back in the hands and the wallets of working families across Virginia so that they continue to meet their obligations to their families."

The proposal would raise the state's cigarette tax to just one cent shy of the national average state tax of $1.46.

Hope, who is supported by the Tobacco Free Alliance of Virginia, is hoping this measure fares better than a similar bill he offered last session. That bill, which failed to make it out of committee, would have raised the cigarette tax and used the revenue generated to help fund the state's Medicaid program.

He said he feels this years version has a better chance because it offsets a the car tax directly and would be " a shot in the arm to Virginia's economy."

Even with the changes, however, this tax trade proposal may not get much farther than it did last year.

While unveiling the General Assembly's Conservative Caucus Agenda Tuesday, caucus co-chairman Ben Cline, R-Rockbridge, said Hopes tobacco tax increase proposal is one of the specific pieces of legislation his 40-member group of Senators and Delegates is opposing.

Still, Hope made a plea that his bill not be killed in committee this year.

"Don't let this bill just die in subcommittee without Virginians even knowing about it," Hope said. "This bill can help real Virginians struggling to make ends meet. I urge every Virginian who hates paying that car tax every October to call their delegate and ask them to vote for this bill."

Comments

[Gary]

Is anyone fooled by this. Who pays the car tax. People who can afford a newer car. People with old cars don't pay a car tax. Who buys the cigareet's? mostly poorer people.What happens when less and less people smoke? They have to find another way to get your tax money. Back to a car tax!!
So who really benifits from this?Richer people Like our Senator's and delegates. I assume by their comments only real virgina's struggle like them. The rest of us don't matter to these people.