Tobacco Tax in NY Highest in Nation

When it comes to New York, there are some certainties regarding government. Spending relentlessly rises, with any talk about even a bit of restraint being met with cries of catastrophe. Taxes are high and go relentlessly higher.

Indeed, New York's governmental burdens rank among the weightiest in the nation. For example, on the 2009 "Small Business Survival Index," which ranks the states and District of Columbia according to their public policy climates for entrepreneurship and small business, New York came in at 48, or fourth worst.

And now as state legislators wrestle with an expected deficit topping $9 billion, and with a budget nearly three months late, lawmakers late on June 21 jacked up the state's cigarette tax by 58 percent - from $2.75 per pack to $4.35. That means New York will have the highest state tax in the nation...

Read the rest of the SBE Council Fact of the Week here.