Tobacco Tax and Enforcement Reform Act

Paper Topic:  Tobacco Tax and Enforcement Reform Act

 

Requirements: Word Documents uploaded

 

Questions:  What are the main tax parts of the Act?

 

What are the current taxes at state and federal levels.

 

Why do we want tobacco taxes?    What does the literature say about negative externalities from tobacco-related diseases.  Are health costs higher, and are they partly borne by non-smokers  (higher insurance premiums, etc).

 

Incidence of tax?   My guess is that the tax is regressive:  lower income people smoke more and so pay more of the tax.    But it would nice to see some estimates of how tax burdens vary across income groups

 

What is the price elasticity of tobacco products, and does it differ across products.    Should we really tax all tobacco products at same rate?

 

This last issue is particularly important:  Do high tobacco taxes reduce smoking significantly?

 

Some of these questions might be answered using Google Scholar to search for articles.