Ohio Senate budget plan includes tobacco tax hike

The Ohio Senate unveiled its budget plan this week and it includes restoring a portion of the tobacco-tax hike that was part of Gov. Kasich’s original budget plan (Source: “Ohio Senate's budget plan includes income tax cuts, tobacco tax hike,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, June 8, 2015).

The Senate’s budget plan calls for raising Ohio's cigarette tax from $1.25 per pack to $1.65 per pack. The state tax on cigars, chewing tobacco and other tobacco products would rise from 17 percent to 22.5 percent, though the increase would not apply to electronic cigarettes.

Gov. Kasich’s budget plan called for raising the per-pack tax from $1.25 to $2.25 and increasing taxes on cigars and other tobacco processes (including e-cigarettes) to the same level as cigarette taxes -- from 17 percent of wholesale cost to 60 percent. Those provisions were eliminated in the House budget bill that was passed in April.

To learn more about policy options for reducing tobacco use in Ohio, read HPIO’s recently released policy brief “The state of tobacco use prevention and cessation in Ohio.”