Looks like smokeless tobacco (including snus) and large cigars will get no new taxes in Pennsylvania. The senate passed the bill sent to them by the house yesterday and the Governor has said that he’ll sign it. Cigarettes and small cigars are getting hit with a 25 cent per pack tax increase.

The latest version through the Pennsylvania House hikes taxes 25 cents on each pack of cigarettes and small cigars, but leaves large cigars and smokeless tobacco untaxed. The bill now moves to the Senate for a vote.

Not surprisingly, the Pennsylvania Senate was hostile to the House version of the budget, which would have raise smokeless tobacco rates, and is pushing yet another version. This version taxes table games at slots casinos, cigarette and natural gas drilling and removes the controversial taxes on on arts venues, small games of chance licensees, smokeless [...]

In the House version of the Pennsylvania state budget sits a new tobacco tax. The new tax, if it becomes law, would increase the retail price of tobacco sold in Pennsylvania by 30%. This would give the state a tax on cigarettes and smokeless tobacco for the first time. It would also no longer be [...]

Good news for people who buy from Pennsylvania-based snus warehouses. Lawmakers appear to have decided to leave cigar and smokeless tobacco alone despite the estimated $70 million a tax would generate in revenue.
Pennsylvania, like many states, faces a budget shortfall. But a tax on snus and other tobacco products would just chase Internet retailers out [...]