"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." ~ H.L. Mencken
The Great Cigarette-Tax Lie
"New York's highest-in-the-nation cigarette taxes are failing to drive down smoking rates; instead, they're just putting a heavy extra burden on poor New Yorkers."
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NYC's poor folks just don't understand the cigarette tax (etal) is for their own good.
Who knows best how to spend your hard won earnings?
You the person toiling away or the nanny state with it's various diktats and unquenchable thirst for revenue.
Where I live (Michigan) many people drive south 20 miles or so to Indiana and stock up on tobacco then drive another two miles across the state line into Ohio for liquor & beer, and fill up on gasoline and then head back to Michigan. Sadly, MI doesn't not have any lower taxed items here we can exchange with the folks to our south.
Government interference defines corruption and "black market" profit.
The tax rate defines the extra profit for anything (like cigarettes) that can be bought outside the taxed zone. This natural market is called "black market" but it's actually the interference that is black, stealing from the consumer by taxation and rewarding the competitor willing to risk the state's gun.
As it is with regulations. The need for a company to "corrupt" the officials writing the regulations to keep their conditions favorable is directly proportional to the onerousness of that regulation. If the state did not interfere in business, business would not care about the state (excecept for those who start the interference from scratch by seeking out corruptible officials to interefere with their markets in their favor).
I forgot to include fireworks. Michigan law allows stuff that is banned everywhere else in the tri-state region. People come from as far away as Ontario, Canada to get them here where they're legal. They often trade them for cheaper RX drugs than you can buy here or for stuff that is legal over-the-counter like Melatonin or Tylenol #3 that you need an RX for there. There are a lot income opportunities available anywhere governments with conflicting laws set up borders.