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 readNew Jersey‘s tax system ranks 49th overall on the 2025 State Tax Competitiveness Index. New Jersey levies all major categories of tax, typically at high rates and significant levels of complexity.
In 1976, the Garden State enacted an individual income tax, in part to provide relief from rising property taxes. Now, individual taxpayers are subject to eight individual income tax brackets, a top marginal rate of 10.75 percent, and the highest per capita property tax collections in the nation. Moreover, individual taxpayers are subject to a marriage penalty. New Jersey property taxpayers also pay the third-highest effective rate in the country. The state repealed the estate tax but continues to levy the inheritance tax.
Corporations face a top marginal tax rate of 11.5 percent, taking into account a surtax on large businesses known as the Corporate Transit Fee. Recently, however, New Jersey has largely removed global intangible low-taxed income (GILTI) from its tax base, and tangible personal property is exempt from property taxation. Additionally, the state conforms to the federal limitation of 80 percent net operating loss carryforwards but fails to conform to the unlimited recovery period included in the federal law.
Category | Rank | Rank Change | Score |
---|---|---|---|
Overall | 49 | 0 | 3.69 |
Corporate Taxes | 44 | 0 | 4.29 |
Individual Income Taxes | 48 | 0 | 2.57 |
Sales Taxes | 35 | -3 | 4.37 |
Property Taxes | 43 | -1 | 4.16 |
Unemployment Insurance Taxes | 50 | 2 | 3.66 |
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