COLUMBIA -- The S.C. Senate is ready to vote on a plan to raise the state's lowest-in-the-nation cigarette tax more than a year after the proposal first entered the chamber.
The Senate is expected to begin debating the bill today.
Senators have floated at least a half-dozen versions of the bill over the past year, but advocates believe they have settled on a compromise that would help some businesses buy health insurance and expand medical coverage for the poor.
That proposal would include a 50-cents-a-pack increase, raising the total per-pack state tax to 57 cents. In comparison, North Carolina's tax is 35 cents a pack while Georgia's is 37 cents a pack. The national average is $1.14 a pack.
"We're gearing up," said Kelly Davis, spokeswoman for the S.C. Tobacco Collaborative, a coalition of health care and public advocacy groups supporting a higher tax. "We're excited that we're finally getting around to something."
Davis said advocates would like to raise the tax as high as possible but are satisfied with one aspect of the plan: the first $5 million raised will pay for programs to help youth and adults quit smoking or avoid smoking in the first place.
Support is strong in the Senate for raising the cigarette tax, but much of the debate has focused on how to spend the approximately $159 million a 50-cents-per-pack tax would raise.
Democrats have pushed to spend the money to expand Medicaid coverage for low-income residents. Others have advocated using the revenue to offer businesses tax credits to buy employee health insurance.
Alexander said lawmakers seem ready to split the revenue among those two options.
"That's very, very important," said Sen. John Land, the Senate Democratic leader, of expanding Medicaid to about 75,000 people, "and that will have a huge impact."
Sen. Thomas Alexander, R-Oconee, who chaired the committee that drafted the bill, said the plan would focus on opening Medicaid coverage to families earning up to twice the federal poverty rate, or $41,300 for a family of four.
Richland County Republican Sen. John Courson has already said he plans to push to use the roughly $150 million raised to cut income taxes, a position echoed by other members of the Senate and Gov. Mark Sanford. Sanford has pledged to veto any plan that does not include a tax cut equivalent to the per-pack increase.
The bill also faces an uncertain future in the House, where advocates and opponents wait to see what the Senate does. Last year the House plan raised the per-pack tax by 30 cents in exchange for cutting the sales tax on groceries. The grocery sales tax has since been eliminated.
With five weeks before the session ends, Davis said, advocates are worried time could run out on the bill this year. Those supporting and opposing raising the tax have sent mail to S.C. voters.
Alexander believes the Senate is ready to vote, having used the extra year to work through the issues.
"Most folks are ready to debate," Alexander said. "I'm sure it won't meet the criteria from everybody."
| ABOUT THE TAX |
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• Current tax: 7 cents, the lowest in the nation. Tax has remained at 7 cents for 30 years. • House version: Passed last year, the House agreed to raise the cigarette tax by 30 cents a pack to 37 cents. That plan would put S.C.'s tax in line with North Carolina's and Georgia's. Proceeds would pay for the cut in the grocery tax the General Assembly passed last year. • Senate version: The Senate will debate a plan to raise the cigarette tax by 50 cents a pack to 57 cents. That plan would put S.C. at about 50 percent of the national average. Proceeds would pay for health care. • What's next: The Senate can send its version of the cigarette tax to the House. The House will have the option of agreeing to the Senate's higher tax or upholding its own lower version. If that happens, a House-Senate conference committee would be appointed to work out a compromise. |
