According to the latest study by the Tax Foundation, Missouri has the lowest state tax on a pack of cigarettes at only 17 cents per pack. Virginia (30 cents), Georgia (37 cents), and North Dakota (44 cents) aren’t too bad either. Contrast this with the state tax in New York—$4.35 per pack. And then there are local cigarette taxes, like in Chicago, where the combined state, county, and municipal taxes total $6.16 and in NYC, where smokers pay a total of $5.85 per pack. And this is all on top of the federal tax of $1.0066 on each pack of cigarettes.

The Best of Laurence M. Vance