With effect from January 1, 2012, the Indonesian government has decided to increase the excise tax on cigarettes next year by an overall 15%, with the intention, it was said, both to discourage smoking and to increase tax revenue.

The usual witnesses showed up with the usual arguments when the Legislature’s Revenue Committee heard testimony on a bill that would boost the state tax on a pack of cigarettes to $1.99. Proponents estimate it would generate an additional $136 million annually.The current tax on a pack of 20 smokes is 64 cents. It kicks $63 million into the state treasury each year.

A plan to raise Vermont’s cigarette tax by a dollar a pack is running into some strong resistance at the Statehouse.Advocates argue the tax is needed to properly fund quit smoking programs. But Governor Peter Shumlin says the plan will cost the state a lot of money. VPR’s Bob Kinzel reports: (Kinzel) A coalition of 45 health and consumer groups is backing the cigarette tax increase. They say the tax hike is needed to restore several million dollars to smoking prevention programs and to discourage young people from buying cigarettes. Under the plan, Vermont’s cigarette tax would rise to $3.24 a pack.

There is always a cause an effect for every action the government does outside the invisible hand of the free markets.  Before there was a green movement, there were the stop smoking advocates which led to the largest lawsuit payoff in US history, and a rash of taxes at both the state and federal levels on cigarettes.

The Philippines is considering a change in cigarette and alcohol levies and will step up prosecution of tax evaders to increase revenue to a level on par with its Asian neighbors as soon as 2013, the government said.Tax revenue in the Southeast Asian country makes up 13.8 percent of gross domestic product, compared with an average of 17 percent among Asian peers, Finance Secretary Cesar Purisimasaid. The difference is costing the government as much as 250 billion pesos ($5.7 billion) a year, he said in an interview at Bloomberg’s headquarters in New York yesterday.

The price increase in cigarettes won’t actually help to make smoker quit smoking, but instead it just help the business people to find ways to smuggle cigarettes. So the government should think twice before enforcing the law.Singapore has tight security in their custom but still people manage to smuggle in cigarettes. What about here? If MoH are really trying to help smokers to quit smoking then where is the campaign? Yes, I’d saw the ‘No Smoking’ banners all around the street corner and advertisement from TV, and what else? We cannot smoke in public and if you do so you will be fine.

Your favorite tobacco products may be tough to find this week, as Utah stores prepare for a $1 per pack cigarette tax increase.As of Thursday tobacco sellers have to pay the state the difference between the old tax and the new level for every pack in stock. Some shops are letting their inventory lag to keep the tax payment as low as possible.Brit McLean, manager of One Stop Smoke Shop in Ogden, said he’s running low on supplies because customers are stocking up to avoid the tax increase as long as possible.

Harvard Medical School, which has suffered financially due in part to a sharp decline in Harvard University’s legendary endowment, has successfully negotiated a deal in which Boston’s major teaching hospitals will contribute $36 million to the school over three years. The hospital money is a small portion of the medical school’s $580 million annual budget, but it may represent a larger turning point in the unusual relationship between the country’s top medical school and its prestigious hospital partners. Harvard is one of the few US medical schools — and may be the only — that traditionally has not received significant financial support for its operations from its teaching hospitals and their physicians. …