DISPARITY IN DUTIES.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20455, 7 November 1934, Page 10

DISPARITY IN DUTIES.

Cigarette and Tobacco Prices. Although pipe smokers may' complain that they have not received the same benefits as cigarette smokers from the new scale of tobacco prices introduced last week, it is claimed that they' are getting a relatively cheaper smoke, because cigarettes are still 50 per cent more heayily taxed than pipe tobaccos. Cigarettes are now almost at pre-war price level, while totfecco prices are still almost double what they were before 1914. But the average tax on cigarettes, taken by weight, is about 10s a pound, while pipe tobacco is taxed 6s lOd a pound. The new duty on popular brands of cigarettes, those which weigh under 2ilb a 1000, is £1 os 6d a thousand. Thus, on a 6d or 7d packet of cigarettes, 3d goes to the Government. On the ruling rate for pipe tobacco, the smoker makes the Government a present of 5M an ounce on mixtures costing lid or Is. But there is consolation in the fact that an ounce of pipe tobacco generally takes longer to smoke than several packets of cigarettes, and it is here that the saving comes in, even though sales tax, at the rate of about Id a two-ounce tin, has to be paid on pipe tobacco and not on cigarettes. In the good old days, one brand of tobacco could be bought for Is Id a two-ounce tin. Now, the same tin costs 2s. This increase in price, explained a city' tobacconist this morning, was brought about not so much by the higher duty, but because mechanical operations could not be used to the same extent in making tobacco as in making cigarettes, resulting in higher labour costs. “ Even with cigarettes at 6d a packet, tobacco is still regarded as a luxury, and is taxed accordingly,” he said. “At the new prices, cigarettes are a little dearer in New Zealand than they' are in England, but pipe tobacco, generally, is cheaper.”