PHOENIX -- As two new voter-approved state taxes on cigarettes and other tobacco products took affect with the new year, the state's Attorney General Terry Goddard announced that the taxes don't apply to on-reservation sales by American Indian tribes and their members to non-Indians, according to the Associated Press.
While Goddard's legal opinions also said that sales by non-Indian to non-Indians on reservations would be subject to the new taxes, he also said wording of two ballot measures means that tobacco sales by shops owned by tribes or tribal [image-nocss] members would not be subject to the new taxes.
Tribes already have an 18-cent-a-pack tax advantage in Arizona, and Goddard's findings in the two opinions on tax increases approved by voters on Nov. 7 apparently would add an additional difference of 82 cents, according to the report.
While that would benefit tribes and smokers who purchase products from tribes, a spokesman for Proposition 203 supporters who sought new tobacco-tax revenue to pay for early childhood programs said he had no immediate comment on Goddard's opinion or its possible impact on the initiative's funding mechanism.
A smaller tax increase approved through Proposition 201 is to pay for enforcement of smoking prohibitions that were the heart of that initiative measure championed by health groups.
The opinions, issued on Dec. 22 as offices were emptying for the Christmas holiday weekend, are in response to questions posed by the state Department of Revenue.
Revenue Department spokesman Dan Zemke said the ballot measures and Goddard's opinion don't affect the current tax applied to tribes' on-reservation sales to non-Indians. That tax is $1 per pack, lower than the $1.18 rate charged on sales off reservations before the new taxes added by the two ballot measures, he said.
Zemke said the difference in taxes does not necessarily translate to price differences for retail customers because merchants can charge whatever they want as long as they pay the required tax.
Meanwhile, the Arizona Department of Health Services hopes the tax increase along with tough indoor smoking bans might be just the formula smokers need to kick the habit.
The health department's Tobacco Education Prevention Program, together with statewide partners, has launched a new smoking cessation campaign that provides assistance to smokers when they resolve to quit, according to a separate report in the Sierra Vista Herald/Review.
We're here to help and encourage smokers by providing the resources they need to stop smoking, regardless of what stage they're in, Janey Pearl, public information officer for Arizona Department of Health Services, told the newspaper. We're also running television ads that show different stages people go through when they try to quit. The entire campaign is to offer encouragement.
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