Raise taxes on tobacco products
Federal budget
Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes. Others must also act.
Why shareholder democracy is necessary
Tobacco tax rates are set by Congress and the states. The documented obstacle is the manufacturers' political spending. Tobacco companies spent $47.2 million to defeat California's Proposition 29 cigarette tax in 2012, with Philip Morris USA giving $28.3 million and Reynolds American $11.2 million. The measure failed by less than one percent of the vote. Montana showed the pattern again in 2018: Altria supplied $17.2 million, 98 percent of all opposition money, to defeat a $2 per pack tax that health groups could not match, and the measure failed. The American Lung Association reports industry lobbyists still working state by state to stop or weaken tobacco control policies. Where tobacco tax increases reach a decision point and die, the documented cause is industry money rather than any court, constitutional or technical barrier. The major manufacturers are publicly traded, so owners can direct them to stop financing campaigns against these taxes, which helps but cannot itself enact one. Majorities of both parties support higher tobacco taxes, so we judge the industry's political spending the linchpin: owners who direct the manufacturers to stop bankrolling these campaigns can release the block.
How this was scoredNecessary
Necessary. Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes. Others must also act.
We have not yet written down the two answers behind this rating. Recording them on every item, so a reader can check the reasoning and not only the conclusion, is work in progress.
Every rating is the higher of two answers, one for what companies do and one for what they spend to stop the outcome, because the same vote reaches both. See the full method.
Sources
- Common Ground of the American People: The Federal Budget (Americans on the FY2025 Budget), Program for Public Consultation / Voice of the People, survey May 30 - June 16, 2025
- Big Tobacco Wins Tax Battles, National Institute on Money in State Politics (FollowTheMoney.org), accessed 2026-08-28
- State of Tobacco Control 2025 (press release), American Lung Association, 2025-01-29
- Record $26M Spent on Defeated Tobacco Tax Measure in Montana, Flathead Beacon, 2018-11-27
What civil society organizations are helping owners on this
Led a 2024 proposal at Altria asking for annual reporting on whether political and lobbying spending, including support for ALEC, is congruent with the company's stated vision and responsibility goals.
1 campaign on record
Report annually on the congruence of the company's political and lobbying expenditures, including trade association payments, with its stated vision and responsibility focus areas, and disclose incongruent spending.
With CommonSpirit Health, Mercy Investment Services, Province of St. Joseph of the Capuchin Order, Sisters of Charity of St. Elizabeth, Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia
Result: 9.5 percent in favor at the May 16, 2024 meeting
Political Contributions Misalignment at Altria Group, Inc., PRI Collaboration Platform, 2024-05
Related subjects on other maps
How this rating was made
Every item on every one of our maps is read against one question: how far does this depend on the people who own companies voting their values? We answer it twice, once for what companies do and once for what they spend to stop the outcome, and take whichever answer is higher, since the same vote reaches both. The score carries its reasoning and its sources so that a reader can check it rather than take it.
- Pivotal. Owners voting their values can deliver most of the outcome.
- Necessary. Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes, and others must also act.
- Helpful. Owners voting their values help, and others carry most of it.
- Independent. This moves without owners. Other levers carry it.
The advocacy record on this page holds only what a source we opened says happened. Where we searched and found nothing, the page says so rather than leaving a silence. Where a campaign names a filer the source does not name, it says that too. Ratings are ours; the list of subjects is Common Ground of the American People's, and we link to their original.
How we score dependency, in full.