ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Cigarette taxes in the United States

Hi kiddo! So, you know how cigarettes are those things that grown-ups smoke? Well, the government in the United States decided that smoking isn't good for people and they wanted to discourage people from smoking.

One way they did that was by adding something called a "tax" to cigarettes. A tax is kind of like when your parents give you money to go to a store and you have to give some of that money back to the government to pay for things like roads, schools, and hospitals. But for cigarettes, it's like you have to pay extra money just for buying the cigarettes.

Now, every state in the US has a different tax on cigarettes. For example, in New York, the tax on one pack of cigarettes is about $4.50. That means if a pack of cigarettes costs $10, almost half of the price is just the tax!

The idea behind this tax is that if cigarettes are more expensive, people might not want to buy them as much. Plus, the money from the tax can go towards things like healthcare for people who get sick from smoking or programs to help people quit smoking.

So, that's basically what cigarette taxes in the United States are all about. It's a way to discourage people from smoking and to use the extra money to help communities.