By Kevin Lavery, KWMU
St. Louis, MO. – A University of Michigan economist says government efforts to impose excise, or "sin" taxes on certain goods often have limited success.
Dr. James Hines spoke about excise taxes during a forum Friday at Washington University in St. Louis.
Hines says evidence shows that states with higher taxes on cigarettes generally have fewer lung-related illnesses. But he adds that government tends to hold the line on taxing some large businesses.
In the case of taxes on individual industries like beer, it's doubtless a mistake if you want to keep a major presence in some industry to tax it very, very heavily, because governments that do that find that the industry winds up leaving, Hines said.
A proposal by one Missouri health care coalition would raise the cigarette tax by 80 cents per pack to help doctors recoup low Medicaid reimbursements.