Xhe consumer market 



Tennesseans are no different in tlieir tobacco-buying 

 pattern from otlier Americans— the largest consumers 

 of cigarettes in the world. In 1971, through 32,413 

 retail outlets, thev bought 417.9 million packages of 

 cigarettes with an estimated wholesale value of $91 

 million and a retail value of almost $175 million. 



Tennessee consumers also purchased cigars, smoking 

 and chewing tobaccos, snuff, pipes and other smokers' 

 articles, and while total retail expenditures for these 

 items are not known, their wholesale value came to 

 about $106,915,250 in 1971. 



JLhe ever-bulging treasuries 



Ever since a federal tax was established on manu- 

 factured tobacco, the various tobacco products have 

 been hea\'ily taxed. The tax on finished commodities 

 was first applied in 1862. Cigarettes were included in 

 the tax in 1864. Since the inception of the tobacco 

 excise the total yield to the United States Treasury 

 through June 1971 has been over $61 billion. 



The current federal rate on each package of 20 

 cigarettes is eight cents. It was "temporarily" raised 

 from seven cents in 1952. Tennessee consumers made 

 a substantial contribution to the over $2.2 billion col- 

 lected on tobacco products by the Internal Revenue 

 Service in 1971. 



The cigarette excise tax in Tennessee is an additional 

 13 cents per pack. The original tax on cigarettes in 

 Tennessee, four cents, became effective in 1925. It was 

 dropped to three cents in 1937 and increased four times 



14 



