DALLAS - If Texans aren't keeping their
New Year's resolutions to quit smoking, the state is sure keeping its
goal of generating more money off them.
In the first two months since a $1 tax
hike on a pack of cigarettes in Texas began Jan. 1, the state
collected about $53.5 million more in tobacco tax revenue compared
with the same period in 2006, according to the comptroller's office.
But the increase - added on top of the
previous 41-cent tax - isn't filling everyone's pockets. Cigarette
sales in convenience stores are down about 12 percent statewide,
according to industry lobbyists. Store owners near bordering states
with cheaper taxes report even steeper losses.
Comptroller spokesman R.J. DeSilva said
despite the nearly $125 million in cigarette taxes collected through
February, it's too early to project whether the state will meet its
previous estimate of $1 billion by the end of the fiscal year.
''We want to take a look at sales for
several months before looking at any trends,'' DeSilva said.
Lawmakers passed the cigarette tax
increase, the state's first since 1991, last year to help offset cuts
in local property taxes.
Slower sales and increased state
revenue aside, not all forecasts about the tax hike are coming true so
far. Earlier concerns that cigarette smuggling would spike
dramatically once carton prices rose $12 appear largely unfounded,
according to the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol.
The largest seizure reported this year
is 25 cartons hidden inside a car in Hidalgo, said Rick Pauza, a
spokesman for the agency's field office in Laredo. Pauza did report
nearly double the number of cigarette seizures from Brownsville to Del
Rio compared with this time last year, but he said the 29 seizures
since January included a pack here and carton there.
''We haven't seen anything major,''
said Franceska Perot, spokeswoman for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco
and Firearms in Houston.
Most noticeable along the border since
the tax hike is a nearly tenfold surge in cigarettes surrendered by
drivers crossing from Mexico. With more travelers balking at the extra
$1, the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission says the agency
confiscated about 2,700 cigarette packages at entry ports through
February this year - up from fewer than 300 in the first two months of
2006.
Doug DuBois, director of membership
services and governmental affairs for the Texas Petroleum Marketers
and Convenience Store Association, said stores are optimistic that
their sales will improve later in the year.
''This is about what we expected,''
DuBois said.
State tax revenue on cigarettes in
January was about $82 million, compared with $35.5 through the first
month of 2006, DeSilva said. February saw revenues of $42.7 million,
compared with $35.7 million in February 2006.
Texas was formerly among the states
with the lowest cigarette tax. The $1.41 tax now ranks Texas among the
top third. New Jersey levies a nation-high state tax of $2.58 per
pack.
States surrounding Texas all have lower
cigarette taxes. The New Mexico tax is 91 cents per pack, Arkansas is
59 cents and Oklahoma's tax is $1.03.
