Quoted Text

(Reuters) - Americans armed themselves to the teeth and paid through the nose to have a smoke, according to a U.S. government report released on Wednesday.

The U.S. federal government collected $20.6 billion in taxes on alcohol, tobacco, firearms and ammunition in fiscal year 2009, up 41 percent from the previous fiscal year, according to the annual report of the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau.

Part of the U.S. Treasury Department, the TTB credited most of the $6 billion rise in revenues collected to the increased taxes on the tobacco industry as a result of the Children's Health Insurance Reauthorization Act passed in February 2009.

There was also a spike in tax collection from the sale of guns and ammunition, said the report from the agency that has an annual budget of $99 million.

Quoted from Box A Rox

According to the Center for Disease Control, the real cost to taxpayers for every pack of cigarettes that is consumed, is $10.49 a pack.

The tobacco tax would have to rise to the $10.49 figure before the American tax payer begins to  breaks even, and stops subsidizing smokers in the USA.

I really don't care if smokers kill themselves.. I just resent paying for their addiction.