Premium Cigar Taxes by State, 2024
Over 500 million premium cigars were sold in the United States in 2023. With each sale comes a complex tax landscape.
4 min readNevada‘s tax system ranks 17th overall on the 2025 State Tax Competitiveness Index. Nevada forgoes both individual and corporate income taxes, though it levies a low-rate payroll tax (for purposes other than unemployment insurance) that exclusively taxes wage income, and places a low multi-rate gross receipts tax, the Commerce Tax, on businesses. The Commerce Tax is structurally unsound, as it taxes gross revenue rather than profits, but it is imposed at rates low enough to make the tax’s distortions less damaging.
Nevada’s sales tax is higher than average, as an offset for not levying broad-based income taxes. Its remote seller threshold takes the number of transactions into account, whereas best practice is to adopt a dollar-denominated threshold. The state does not impose a capital stock tax, and, absent income taxes, avoids many of the structural questions faced by other states. However, the state’s unemployment insurance tax regime is relatively uncompetitive.
Category | Rank | Rank Change | Score |
---|---|---|---|
Overall | 17 | 0 | 5.37 |
Corporate Taxes | 39 | 1 | 4.71 |
Individual Income Taxes | 7 | 0 | 6.96 |
Sales Taxes | 40 | -1 | 4.03 |
Property Taxes | 7 | 0 | 6.04 |
Unemployment Insurance Taxes | 46 | -1 | 4.00 |
Over 500 million premium cigars were sold in the United States in 2023. With each sale comes a complex tax landscape.
4 min readPolicymakers can and should address taxpayers’ legitimate grievances about out-of-control property tax bills, but they should do so without upending a system of taxation that is more efficient, fair, and pro-growth, and better suited to municipal finance, than any of the alternatives.
39 min readThe State Tax Competitiveness Index enables policymakers, taxpayers, and business leaders to gauge how their states’ tax systems compare. While there are many ways to show how much state governments collect in taxes, the Index evaluates how well states structure their tax systems and provides a road map for improvement.
115 min read