A $45 billion infrastructure plan passed by Illinois law makers on June 1 includes a $1 per-pack cigarette tax hike, which would result in a $2.98 tax per-pack on cigarettes.
This would be the second highest in the mid-west, behind Minnesota, and tenth highest in the country. Included in Governor J.B Pritzker’s plan is a 15 percent tax on e-cigarettes. Illinois has recently seen a decline in cigarette tax revenue, possibly because of a decrease in the amount of people who smoke and the rise in legal age to buy cigarettes to 21.
In Chicago, citizens already pay high city and county level taxes on cigarettes. With this new hike, the taxes would be $8.17 per pack.
The US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives worries that people near the state lines will buy cigarettes in lower taxed states and will smuggle them back to Illinois.
“The incentive to profit by evading payment of taxes rises with each tax rate hike,” the ATF report stated.
