Draft law to increase Georgia’s tax on tobacco products receives bipartisan push to curb smoking

A bipartisan group of lawmakers, including several who work in the public health sector, has backed a proposal to increase the tax rate on cigarettes and vapor products in the name of public health.

Georgia’s 37-cent per pack tax is one of the lowest rates in the country — the second-highest after Missouri — but past efforts to raise rates have gone nowhere fast.

But House Speaker Jon Burns appeared to leave the door open to a possible raise when asked by reporters at that session, leaving supporters optimistic about their chances. It also helps that it’s not an election year.

State Assemblyman Ron Stephens. Photo of the Georgia House of Representatives

State Assemblyman Ron Stephens, a Savannah Republican and pharmacist who is the lead sponsor, says he’s trying to convince his peers to view the tax more as a “user fee.” Other sponsors are doctors and a dentist.

“If you want to smoke, if you smoke long enough and hard enough, you’ll get sick,” Stephens said this week. “And so it shouldn’t be up to the state of Georgia taxpayers to fund your health care costs on products, vaping or cigarettes.”

The increase would add about $90 million to government revenue, which proponents say should be used for health services.

Stephens tabled two bills this month that would deal with cigarettes and vaping separately if either of them is hung in the legislative process. One The invoice would increase the cigarette tax by 20 cents to 57 cents per pack.

The second The invoice would increase the tax on vapor products from 7% to 15%.

The cigarette tax proposal doesn’t go as far as others would like — or as high as a new poll suggests the public might support.

Approximately 63% of respondents to a recent poll said they would support the move to the national average, which is a much higher $1.91 per pack. That survey, released Friday, was conducted by the School of Public and International Affairs Survey Research Center at the University of Georgia and commissioned by the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute.

“We really hope that this polling data can help fuel the debate about increasing this proposal from 57 cents,” said Staci Fox, GBPI President and CEO.

In 2020, as government revenues plummeted at the onset of the pandemic, an influential Republican senator launched a cigarette tax hike to $1.35 per pack.

Stephens said he was wary of pushing the rate too high for fear of creating a black market in cigarettes. Under his proposal, Georgia would match South Carolina’s tax rate and continue to have one of the lowest tax rates in the country.

Rep. Michelle Au, a Johns Creek Democrat and anesthesiologist, originally tabled a proposal that would bring the tax up to the national average. But she has since joined her GOP peers for a smaller raise.

The 57-cent rate is a more regional approach, although it ignores the states with the highest and lowest rates. Florida cigarette tax is $1.34 per pack.

Rep. Michelle Au is calling for a deep dive into the costs and effects of smoking in Georgia at a meeting of the House Health Committee this week. Jill Nolin/Georgia Recorder

Au said she was hoping for a steeper rise, which she says would serve as a bigger deterrent, especially among younger smokers who are more budget-conscious. Still, she argued it will likely have some impact on behavior, noting that it’s more than 50% and the most significant increase in two decades.

“It’s always that balance, weighing the public health benefits against political reality and trying not to upset the apple cart by going too far too quickly,” Au said.

Au also suggested a bicameral study committee that would address the cost and impact of a habit that affects every organ system in the body. At a meeting this week, she posed questions about what the state really can – or should – do to discourage people from smoking.

Au argues the state has not properly addressed the burden smoking places on Georgia taxpayers in two decades. The former state senator-turned-state representative this year came to the meeting with a slew of colorful research, including a study showing Georgia could save about $39 million if just 1% of its Medicaid population quit smoking.

“No type of medical care is unaffected by smoking,” she said. “All of these things come at a cost. So when we talk about how much this is going to cost people, let’s not forget that we are already paying that cost as a society.”

For now, the tax proposals still have a long way to go in the House, and a key deadline is March 6, when a bill must clear at least one chamber to have the clearest path to law.