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Democrats are making one of young Americans’ most popular habits more expensive in blue states — vaping.
The price of vaping isn’t just determined by what’s on the shelf. Tax policies can add nearly $18 to the cost of the same vaping product from state to state, creating sharp price differences for U.S. consumers where the price of the same product depends on where they live and shop.
The result is a fragmented tax landscape where blue states are on average paying much more than red states for the same product.
Minnesota and Washington tie for the nation’s highest vaping tax burden at about $17.90, with Vermont just behind at roughly $17.33.
At the other end of the spectrum, Delaware, Georgia, Kansas, Nebraska, North Carolina and Wisconsin each add just $0.36 to the same product, the lowest tax burden among states that tax vaping products.
Meanwhile, there are 16 states that do not levy a statewide vape tax at all. For the states that do, however, there’s no single approach.
“Unlike other excise taxes, like those on gasoline or even cigarettes, vape taxes have almost no conformity across U.S. states,” Adam Hoffer, director of excise tax policy at the Tax Foundation, told Fox News Digital.
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Many states have adopted excise taxes on vaping products as cigarette tax revenues decline. (Michael Nagle/Bloomberg/Getty Images)
Hoffer said those differences make it difficult to compare states without a standardized analysis.
“Vapor products get taxed sometimes by the amount of milliliters in the product, sometimes by the retail price, sometimes by wholesale price, sometimes it depends on the kind of vaping product it is,” he said. “And so it’s really hard to do an apples-to-apples comparison across states when we look at vaping access.”
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Despite those differences, Hoffer said one trend has become increasingly clear: more states are looking to vaping taxes as a source of revenue, particularly as cigarette tax collections decline alongside falling smoking rates.
“Some states are simply trying to replace their cigarette tax revenue with taxes on things like vaping products,” he said.
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A patchwork of state tax policies has created wide differences in the price of vaping products across the nation. (Patrick T. Fallon/AFP/Getty Images)
That trend has helped push tax burdens especially high in parts of the West Coast, Hoffer said. He pointed to Washington and Minnesota, which tax many vaping products at 95% of the wholesale price.
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“In some cases, you can be close to doubling the legal price of the product in the state,” Hoffer said.
Those higher taxes don’t just affect prices, they can also influence where consumers choose to shop. Hoffer said many people who vape are aware of neighboring states with lower taxes and may cross state lines to save money, particularly in the Washington, D.C., region, where Maryland and Virginia are nearby.
