INDIANAPOLIS – It appears the legal age to buy cigarettes and e-cigarettes is going up. But Indiana’s taxes on those products won’t be, at least next year.
Governor Holcomb had announced a push to raise the age to 21 before Congress announced plans to do it nationally. He still plans to ask legislators to make 21 the legal age to possess nicotine products. But the governor isn’t backing health groups’ other key anti-smoking plank: a call to raise Indiana’s cigarette tax. Holcomb says he did sound out legislators on it before this year’s session, and found virtually no support.
The House approved a cigarette tax hike in 2016 and 2017 as part of a road funding package. The Senate didn’t consider it either year, and the eventual package for roads relied on gas taxes and B-M-V fees instead.
Holcomb says he does support a vape tax — he says there’s no reason one form of nicotine should be taxed while another isn’t. But he says the legislature “missed (its) window” this year, when the Senate gutted a House-passed vape tax in a stalemate over how the tax should be assessed. Holcomb says any discussion of trying again should wait till the next budget session in 2021.