Colorado’s already oppressive tobacco tax could get worse if a petition submitted to the Secretary of State’s office yesterday gets certified and approved by voters on the November ballot. A group known as Campaign for a Healthy Colorado submitted more than 165,000 signatures in support of getting Initiative #143 included as part of the fall election, which seeks to raise the tobacco tax by 22% of the manufacturer’s list price and the cigarette tax by $1.75 per pack of cigarettes. The Secretary of State’s office will now conduct a a 5 percent random sample of submitted signatures to determine whether the proposals meet the threshold to make the ballot, which is 98,492 valid voter signatures. The results of that sample must be announced by Sept. 7. Currently, cigar and other non-cigarette tobacco products are taxed at 40% of the manufacturer’s invoiced price. Should the initiative pass, that would jump to 62%. For a cigar with an MSRP of $9.50, the pre-sales tax price at the register would jump from $13.30 to $15.39 by halfwheel estimates. Cigarettes would jump from $0.84 tax on a 20-count pack to $2.59. The group says that the tax increase would bring in approximately $315 million to ...
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