South Dakota Insurance

American Tobacco giants, including State measures, the vote would substantially increase excise taxes or expand smoking bans, retreating. They are spending tens of millions of dollars and, in some cases, pushed his rival as the rate of harsh restrictions, but it would actually ease antismoking laws that already exist in the books.

The campaign subscription most large multinational tobacco is the attention to California, where Reynolds American Inc. and Philip Morris USA, in collaboration with the parent company Altria Group Inc., have already sunk a combined $ 55 million in a drive to fight against higher taxes on the packaging of smokes $ 2.60. The extent to which November vote, estimated at 2.1 billion dollars in annual revenue for the State of California and do’s consumption of tobacco, the tax is currently 87 cents per pack, the highest in the nation. Revenue for the tax to fund health programs, especially for children.

Companies are spending heavily as it is at stake higher. Philip Morris, the industry’s largest cigarette manufacturer, said that California is the largest retail internal market. Reynolds, No. 2 of the nation of tobacco, said the state represent about 6 percent of its turnover cigarette. “Of course, the impact of California would be pressure on the outcome,” said Dianne Neal, Reynolds’s Chief Financial Officer, during a conference of analysts in late July. During the same conference, Ms. Neal said that the company as a whole spend $ 40 million in tax increases and overcome smoking bans for the ballot papers across the country, November this year.

A leader of citizen-driven proposal for a vote, California has often costly campaigns of large corporations seeking the defeat of initiatives hostile ballot, and this year is no exception. Another measure to taxes on fuel, triggered a costly campaign to oil companies. In 2005, a group of pharmaceutical companies spent $ 73 million on a loss of revenue proposed drug discount. And in 1998, insurance companies spent $ 66 million over a defeat for measuring auto insurance. “Initiative campaigns are not cheap - this is not a good venture,” said the spokesman for Reynolds, David Howard.

So far, the coalition of cigarette companies and tobacco and cigars by manufacturer’s supporters outspent this year, cigarette paper control proposal - especially a collection of California hospitals - by a 3 to 1 margin. State discs show that, a month before the election, Philip Morris had $ 30.7 million to the campaign and Reynolds had donated nearly $ 24 million. By the end of September, the antitax campaign had already more than $ 48 million.

The result was a tidal wave of television advertising undermines the value added tax and increased its main Backer, California hospital association, whose members are most to benefit from the new tax. “I was in California for two days last week, and that is all I saw on television,” said Kristina Wilfore, manager of the left rejects Ballot Initiative Strategy Center. “They were even aeration on the Cartoon Network at midnight.

In addition to California, companies are fighting the same tax measures in Missouri, Arizona, South Dakota and Ohio. In Missouri, the state Supreme Court examines whether a 80 cents-a-pack increase in value added tax appear in the November vote of a moral challenge. If the measure survives, M. Howard said, “we can not say with certainty,” the company is a salary many dollars for the campaign to defeat.

Philip Morris spokeswoman Peggy Roberts said the company has begun consumers and suppliers of campaigns to defeat a proposal for a $ 1-a-pack increase in value added tax in South Dakota and 80 cents-a-pack increase in Arizona. She said that the company was mounting similar efforts in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, where voters are asked to approve a 30 cents-a-pack tax on cigarettes to finance a local Arts Program.

Ms. Roberts has to say, as many companies, spending on campaigns.

The violence, that large multinational tobacco have shown this year against the cigarette taxes contrasts with the industry, inactivity on this subject in recent years. The two cigarette companies offered only token resistance against Missouri in 2002 a proposal to increase the cigarette tax 55 cents. They spent a combined $ 77000 victory over the proposal of the State records show themselves as a group of health charities and others have spent more than $ 5 million to support the effort. The same year was 60 cents, a fee increase proposed Arizona past, without the money spent by opponents, records public. In Florida in 2002, Philip Morris abruptly ended a disk drive for a ban on smoking with a mild degree of spending $ 360000 to a petition filed by the reader.