Les entrepreneurs gagnent contre les nazis de la santé et de la taxation

Via Economic Policy Journal:

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 2010

The Big Apple Black Market Blows a Big Hole in a New York Tax

NyPo reports on New York's crazed taxes on cigarettes:

It doesn't take much coaxing to get otherwise legitimate Big Apple businesses into the illegal cigarette trade.

"They come out here like they are salesman from Pepsi or the potato-chip company," said the owner of a north Bronx bodega that sells smuggled Newports and Marlboros for $8 a pack.

"I don't know how the city is going to stop it. The city is losing a lot of tax money," he said. "They are killing themselves, because no one is paying $12 for a pack of cigarettes, and I'm not paying taxes on the money I make selling them."

His supplier provides him with cartons between $45 and $50 a pop, which gives him a $30- to $35-per-carton profit.

Despite the risks, individual entrepreneurs are also getting into the act.

"I needed a second job, and since I couldn't find one, I decided to sell cigarettes," said Gregg, a 30-year-old who sells cigarettes out of his backpack for $8 a pack in Midtown. "So far, I'm making a good profit. Sometimes I make $160 a day."

Greg said he simply drives to Delaware, where he can get a carton for $27, and loads up his trunk.

Call it the Delaware Curve, and consider it a corollary to the Laffer Curve. There is a point at which if a state raise taxes on an item significantly higher than neighboring states, the state will actually experience declining tax revenue from the item taxed, as black market entrepreneurs will start operating and smuggle the item from the lower tax state to the higher tax state and sell the item tax free on the black market in the higher tax state.