Governor Kim Reynold says she’ll keep pushing for an increase in Iowa’s tax on cigarettes and other tobacco products and a new 15% sales tax on vaping products. Her proposed tax hikes were included in a bill that failed in a Senate committee last week.
“It’s never ‘dead dead’ until (legislators) go home and those converations are happening. It is hard and I’ll admit that, but we’re continuing to have the conversations,” Reynolds said. this afternoon “I put it in my budget, so it’s something I support and so I will continue to advocate for it because I believe that it’s the right thing to do.”
Reynolds held a news conference earlier this month to release the latest University of Iowa research on cancer rates in Iowa and proposed the tax hike as one way to reduce smoking and address the fact Iowa has more late stage lung cancer cases than other states. “With the cancer numbers that we and when you look at 70% of lung cancer (cases) are attributed to tobacco, I think it makes sense that we take a look at that,” Reynolds told reporters today after an event in her statehouse office..
A House committee has considered a bill that includes some of the governor’s Make America Healthy Again or MAHA agenda, but House Republicans removed the tobacco tax hike from the legislation. Reynolds said she understands her fellow Republicans are relutant to raise taxes on cigarettes, vapes and consumable hemp products.
“I’m not a governor that raises taxes, but there are certain areas where it does make sense,” Reynolds said, “and it aligns with the MAHA bill and it aligns with what we’re trying to do across the board.”
Reynolds is proposing that the state tax on a pack of cigarettes go up to the national average, which is $2.01 a pack. Reynolds also recommends the state start charging a 15% tax on vaping products and consumable hemp products.