Florida Senate - 2012                                    SB 1842
       
       
       
       By Senator Ring
       
       
       
       
       32-01328-12                                           20121842__
    1                        A bill to be entitled                      
    2         An act relating to the surcharge on cigarettes;
    3         providing a short title; amending s. 210.011, F.S.;
    4         increasing the surcharge rates applicable to packages
    5         of cigarettes containing various quantities of
    6         cigarettes of specified weights and lengths;
    7         establishing a separate fee rollback account in a
    8         specified trust fund; requiring specified amounts of
    9         the surcharge on packages of cigarettes to be
   10         deposited in such separate fee rollback account;
   11         providing requirements and procedures with respect to
   12         the Legislature’s anticipated use of such funds
   13         exclusively to incrementally roll back certain fee
   14         increases previously enacted; providing an effective
   15         date.
   16  
   17         WHEREAS, each day, nearly 4,000 children in the United
   18  States try their first cigarettes, and an additional 1,000
   19  children under 18 years of age become regular, daily smokers,
   20  amounting to nearly 400,000 new underage smokers each year, and
   21         WHEREAS, the addiction rate for smoking is higher than the
   22  addiction rate for marijuana, alcohol, or cocaine, and symptoms
   23  of serious nicotine addiction often occur just weeks or even
   24  days after youth experimentation with smoking begins, and
   25         WHEREAS, nearly 90 percent of all smokers begin while in
   26  their teens or earlier, and approximately one-third of all youth
   27  smokers will eventually die prematurely from smoking-related
   28  disease, and
   29         WHEREAS, research consistently confirms that policies that
   30  raise cigarette prices reduce smoking, including underage
   31  smoking, and
   32         WHEREAS, lower smoking prevalence resulting from higher
   33  cigarette prices reduces secondhand smoke exposure among
   34  nonsmokers, especially children and pregnant women, and
   35         WHEREAS, this state has had proven success in reducing
   36  smoking rates through policies that increase the price of
   37  cigarettes, and
   38         WHEREAS, since 2009, when a $1 surcharge was imposed on
   39  each pack of cigarettes sold in this state, pack sales have
   40  fallen by approximately 27 percent; the percentage of high
   41  school students who smoke has declined by nearly one-fifth, from
   42  14.3 percent to 11.9 percent; and the percentage of middle
   43  school students who smoke has seen an even more precipitous
   44  decline of more than one-third, from 5.4 percent to 3.5 percent,
   45  and
   46         WHEREAS, national economic research has shown that every
   47  10-percent increase in the real price of cigarettes reduces
   48  overall cigarette consumption by approximately 3 to 5 percent,
   49  reduces the number of young adult smokers by 3.5 percent, and
   50  reduces the number of children who smoke by 6 or 7 percent, and
   51         WHEREAS, an additional tobacco surcharge would lead to even
   52  better public health, decrease the number of premature deaths
   53  caused by smoking, and prevent many youth from ever becoming
   54  smokers, NOW, THEREFORE,
   55  
   56  Be It Enacted by the Legislature of the State of Florida:
   57  
   58         Section 1. Short title.—This act may be cited as the “Youth
   59  Smoking Prevention Act.”
   60         Section 2. Section 210.011, Florida Statutes, is amended to
   61  read:
   62         210.011 Cigarette surcharge levied; collection.—
   63         (1) A surcharge, in addition to all other taxes of every
   64  kind levied by law, is levied upon the sale, receipt, purchase,
   65  possession, consumption, handling, distribution, and use of
   66  cigarettes in this state, in the following amounts, except as
   67  otherwise provided in subsections (2)-(5), for cigarettes of
   68  standard dimensions:
   69         (a) Upon all cigarettes weighing not more than 3 pounds per
   70  thousand, 5 cents on each cigarette.
   71         (b) Upon all cigarettes weighing more than 3 pounds per
   72  thousand and not more than 6 inches long, 10 cents on each
   73  cigarette.
   74         (c) Upon all cigarettes weighing more than 3 pounds per
   75  thousand and more than 6 inches long, 20 cents on each
   76  cigarette.
   77         (2) The descriptions of cigarettes contained in subsection
   78  (1) are declared to be standard as to dimensions for the purpose
   79  of levying a surcharge as provided in this section. If any
   80  cigarette is received, purchased, possessed, sold, offered for
   81  sale, given away, or used which is of a size other than those
   82  standard dimensions, the cigarette is subject to a surcharge at
   83  the rate of 4.2 cents on each cigarette.
   84         (3) When cigarettes as described in paragraph (1)(a) are
   85  packed in varying quantities of 20 cigarettes or fewer, except
   86  the manufacturer’s free samples authorized under s. 210.04(9),
   87  the following rates shall govern:
   88         (a) Packages containing 10 cigarettes or fewer require a
   89  surcharge of $1 50 cents.
   90         (b) Packages containing more than 10 but not more than 20
   91  cigarettes require a surcharge of $2 $1.
   92         (4) When cigarettes as described in paragraph (1)(b) are
   93  packed in varying quantities of 20 cigarettes or fewer, except
   94  the manufacturer’s free samples authorized under s. 210.04(9),
   95  the following rates shall govern:
   96         (a) Packages containing 10 cigarettes or fewer require a
   97  surcharge of $2 $1.
   98         (b) Packages containing more than 10 but not more than 20
   99  cigarettes require a surcharge of $3 $2.
  100         (5) When cigarettes as described in paragraph (1)(c) are
  101  packed in varying quantities of 20 cigarettes or fewer, except
  102  the manufacturer’s free samples authorized under s. 210.04(9),
  103  the following rates shall govern:
  104         (a) Packages containing 10 cigarettes or fewer require a
  105  surcharge of $3 $2.
  106         (b) Packages containing more than 10 but not more than 20
  107  cigarettes require a surcharge of $5 $4.
  108         (6) This surcharge shall be paid by the dealer to the
  109  division for deposit and distribution as hereinafter provided
  110  upon the first sale or transaction within the state, whether
  111  such sale or transfer is to the ultimate purchaser or consumer.
  112  The seller or dealer shall collect the surcharge from the
  113  purchaser or consumer, and the purchaser or consumer shall pay
  114  the surcharge to the seller. The seller or dealer is responsible
  115  for the collection of the surcharge and payment of the surcharge
  116  to the division. All surcharges are due not later than the 10th
  117  day of the month following the calendar month in which they were
  118  incurred, and thereafter shall bear interest at the rate of 1
  119  percent per month. If the amount of surcharge due for a given
  120  period is assessed without allocating it to any particular
  121  month, the interest begins accruing on the date of the
  122  assessment. Whenever cigarettes are shipped from outside the
  123  state to anyone other than a distributing agent or wholesale
  124  dealer, the person receiving the cigarettes is responsible for
  125  the surcharge on the cigarettes and payment of the surcharge to
  126  the division.
  127         (7) It is the legislative intent that the surcharge on
  128  cigarettes be uniform throughout the state.
  129         (8) The surcharge levied under this section shall be
  130  administered, collected, and enforced in the same manner as the
  131  tax imposed under s. 210.02.
  132         (9)(a) Except as provided in paragraph (b), revenue
  133  produced from the surcharge levied under this section shall be
  134  deposited into the Health Care Trust Fund within the Agency for
  135  Health Care Administration.
  136         (b)1. There is established within the Highway Safety
  137  Operating Trust Fund within the Department of Highway Safety and
  138  Motor Vehicles a fee rollback account, which must be maintained
  139  as a separate account within the trust fund.
  140         2. One dollar of revenue produced from the surcharge levied
  141  on each package of cigarettes described in paragraph (3)(b) and
  142  subsections (4) and (5) and 50 cents from the surcharge levied
  143  on each package of cigarettes described in paragraph (3)(a)
  144  shall be deposited in the fee rollback account to be held in
  145  reserve until the Florida Consensus Estimating Conference
  146  provides formal written certification to the Legislative Budget
  147  Commission that the conference’s official estimates project that
  148  adequate revenues exist in the fee rollback account to support
  149  the incremental rollback of fee increases enacted by the
  150  Legislature in chapter 2009-71, Laws of Florida. Thereafter, the
  151  Legislative Budget Commission may approve requests to transfer
  152  or direct the transfer of revenues from the fee rollback account
  153  to the General Revenue Fund or other appropriate trust funds,
  154  where such transferred funds shall remain unallocated in
  155  anticipation of, and exclusively for, use by the Legislature for
  156  the appropriation of funds to incrementally roll back the fee
  157  increases enacted in chapter 2009-71, Laws of Florida.
  158         Section 3. This act shall take effect July 1, 2012.