ANOTHER BAD SIGN
FOR BUSINESS IN MARYLAND
When this sign was hung in front of a small town grocery store near the Maryland border in West Virginia, the news spread quickly, thanks to articles appearing in the Baltimore Sunand Washington Post. According to these reports, this West Virginia proprietor is thanking the State of Maryland for an extraordinary tax increase. It's no wonder.
Since 1999 the State of Maryland has tripled its tax on cigarettes. Maryland's tax now dwarfs the cigarette tax in neighboring states and stands among the highest in the nation. Because of this mammoth tax hike, Maryland businesses are losing millions to cross-border competitors in Virginia, Delaware, and West Virginia.
|
STATE |
MD |
WV |
DE |
VA |
|
TAX |
$1.00 |
17¢ |
24¢ |
2 1/2¢ |
These businesses sell more than just cigarettes: Milk, bread, gasoline, and higher ticket items also are being purchased by Maryland consumers on cigarette runs to surrounding low tax states. Predictably, this free market nuance was lost on the Free State's business hostile, political collective. In the August 14, 1999 Cumberland Times-News,Delegate Kevin Kelly parted company with the State:
| "The [Maryland] businesses should be upset. I voted against the cigarette tax because it is an attempt to socially engineer behavior through taxation.... It's just another example of the tax, tax, tax mentality." |
This most recent tax increase is heralded as having a lofty social purpose, but the truth is less uplifting. In reality, the tax was raised to increase state revenue and fund the pet projects of legislators. "It's about pork," said Delegate Robert Flanagan in an April 12, 1999 Associated Pressreport. Exactly! It's about the moneyand the State of Maryland's relentless pursuit of more, invariably at the expense of Maryland business.
The cigarette tax is no more about smoking than the gasoline tax is about driving or the sales tax about shopping. Like the cigarette tax, Maryland's gasoline tax is already one of the highest in the country. So, it's the sales tax that is next on the State of Maryland's money menu. That's another . . .
BAD SIGN FOR BUSINESS IN MARYLAND!
| "The State of Maryland not only taxes cigarettes, but now they're in the business of selling them." Attorney Joseph Tauber, criticizing the state for selling the same cigarettes it seized from those trying to avoid Maryland's high cigarette tax by importing from surrounding states, in the April 29, 2000 edition of The Baltimore Sun. |