SCHIP Updates

Items that have increased

April 1, 2009 the SCHIP Federal Tobacco tax program begins. Three areas of the new law that effect us are as follows:

Large cigars are now taxed at 50% of their value up to a maximum of .40 cents. Large cigars are 99% of the cigars we carry. A large cigar is defined as weighing 3 pounds or more per thousand cigars.

Small cigars are now taxed at .05 cents each. Small cigars are defined a those weighing less than 3 pounds per 1000. The items that are effected are cigars like Cafe Creme, Al Capone, Excalibur Miniatures, Nobel Petites and others.

Pipe Tobacco will now be taxed at $2.83 per pound.

Snuff will now be taxed at .925 cents per pound.

Floor Taxes are applied to Small cigars, Pipe tobacco and Snuff. This means that one April 1st, we will pay the Federal Government the difference between the old tax and the new tax on any items we still have in stock. Items that have a floor tax will therefore increase in price on April 1st.

Our plan for increasing prices is as follows. Those items subject to a floor tax will be increased on April 1, 2009. All other items, which are all large cigars, will be increased once we receive new inventory which has been increased by the manufacturer. For example, when we reorder Rocky Patel cigars at the new price and we receive them, we will increase the entire Rocky Patel line. We have over 3000 items and doing them all at once is too difficult and not as fair to our customers. We will not have a schedule of when things will increase but you can send us an email and ask when we think they will go up. Some may go up within a week or so, others may take a couple months. We will try and maintain a list below of items that have/will be increased.

Items that have been increased.

April 1 - Al Capone, Cafe Creme, Nobel Petite, Hoyo de Monterrey Excalibur Miniatures