SALON

Friday, Mar 1, 2013 1:59 PM UTC

There is kitty litter in your cigarette

And it's helping tobacco companies avoid up to $1.1 billion in taxes

By

Topics: Cigarettes, Tobacco industry, Big Tobacco, Business, Consumerism, , ,

There is kitty litter in your cigarette (Credit: Shutterstock)

A dozen tobacco companies have avoided as much as $1.1 billion in taxes by using fillers (like the clay found in cat litter) to make their cigarettes heavier, exempting them from a 2,653 percent increase in a federal excise tax on non-”large cigar” tobacco products.

As reported by Bloomberg News, current rules “require a rolled tobacco product to weigh at least 3 pounds per 1,000 to be labeled as a ‘large’ or ‘premium’ cigar, a category where taxes increased just 155 percent.”

The practice of weighting tobacco products has contributed to a 100 percent increase in sales of the filler-laced products, and a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention blames the “tax disparities between product types” for increased adult consumption of pipe tobacco and cigarette-like cigars. While cigarette smoking has been on the decline for more than a decade, “large cigar” smoking, including the filler-laced cigarettes, tripled in the same time period.

Despite booming sales, the Government Accountability Office estimated in a 2012 report that “market shifts from roll-your-own to pipe tobacco and from small to large cigars reduced federal revenue” by up to $1.1 billion from April 2009 through September 2011.

And it’s completely legal. The Treasury Department said tobacco companies aren’t doing anything illegal by making their products heavier, according to Bloomberg.“If you meet the definition of a large cigar, then you’re a large cigar,” Thomas Hogue, a spokesman for the tobacco bureau, told the news outlet in a telephone interview. “There’s nothing in the Internal Revenue code that goes after the specifics on how that weight is achieved.”

Illinois Senator Dick Durbin recently introduced legislation to close the loophole, which would equalize the tax structure and eliminate the incentive to pack products with weighty fillers. The measure, if passed, could generate $3.6 billion in new tax revenue over 10 years, Christina Mulka, a spokeswoman, told Bloomberg by e-mail.

According to the CDC, tobacco use causes more than 5 million deaths, worldwide, each year. Current figures suggest that tobacco use will cause more than 8 million deaths annually by 2030.

It remains the leading preventable cause of death.

Katie McDonough is an assistant editor for Salon, focusing on lifestyle. Follow her on Twitter @kmcdonovgh or email her at kmcdonough@salon.com. More Katie Mcdonough.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • This photo. President Barack Obama has a laugh during the unveiling of the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Dallas, Tx., Thursday. Former first lady Barbara Bush, who candidly admitted this week we've had enough Bushes in the White House, is unamused.
    Reuters/Jason Reed

  • Rescue workers converge Wednesday in Savar, Bangladesh, where the collapse of a garment building killed more than 300. Factory owners had ignored police orders to vacate the work site the day before.
    AP/A.M. Ahad

  • Police gather Wednesday at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to honor campus officer Sean Collier, who was allegedly killed in a shootout with the Boston Marathon bombing suspects last week.
    AP/Elise Amendola

  • Police tape closes the site of a car bomb that targeted the French embassy in Libya Tuesday. The explosion wounded two French guards and caused extensive damage to Tripoli's upscale al-Andalus neighborhood.
    AP/Abdul Majeed Forjani

  • Protestors rage outside the residence of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Sunday following the rape of a 5-year-old girl in New Delhi. The girl was allegedly kidnapped and tortured before being abandoned in a locked room for two days.
    AP/Manish Swarup

  • Clarksville, Mo., residents sit in a life boat Monday after a Mississippi River flooding, the 13th worst on record.
    AP/Jeff Roberson

  • Workers pause Wednesday for a memorial service at the site of the West, Tx., fertilizer plant explosion, which killed 14 people and left a crater more than 90 feet wide.
    AP/The San Antonio Express-News, Tom Reel

  • Aerial footage of the devastation following a 7.0 magnitude earthquake in China's Sichuan province last Saturday. At least 180 people were killed and as many as 11,000 injured in the quake.
    AP/Liu Yinghua

  • On Wednesday, Hazmat-suited federal authorities search a martial arts studio in Tupelo, Miss., once operated by Everett Dutschke, the newest lead in the increasingly twisty ricin case. Last week, President Barack Obama, Sen. Roger Wicker, R.-Miss., and a Mississippi judge were each sent letters laced with the deadly poison.
    AP/Rogelio V. Solis

  • The lighting of Freedom Hall at the George W. Bush Presidential Center Thursday is celebrated with (what else but) red, white and blue fireworks.
    AP/David J. Phillip

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 14 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
Facebook has been used to find ex-lovers, childhood BFFs or the one who got away. He used it to find the guy who, without his consent, made him his drug mule.
250 points251 points | 23 comments
vote
“This could be a career ender for Michele Bachmann”
167 points168 points | 75 comments
vote
Poll: 3 in 10 voters say “armed revolution might be necessary” - 29% say they believe they'll have to act "in order to protect our liberties" in the next few years
45 points46 points | 18 comments
vote
"New evidence reveals big banks still illegally foreclosing on thousands of homes – and weak settlement allows it."
29 points30 points | comment
vote
Are millennials delusional? New research suggests that members of "Generation Me" are warped by a profound sense of entitlement
27 points28 points | 18 comments

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: "The Shelter Cycle": Raised in a cult

Recommendations