FILE - This March 28, 2019, file photo shows cigarette butts in an ashtray in New York. Moving company U-Haul has a new hiring policy and smokers need not apply. Starting this month the company will screen out people who use tobacco or nicotine when making new hires in certain U.S. states. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane, File)

Cigarette taxes in New York state could increased by another $1.89 a pack to $6.24 a pack under legislation introduced Monday in the state Assembly.

A.10418, sponsored by Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal, D-New York City, has been referred to the Assembly’s Ways and Means Committee. The state excise tax of $4.35 is based on a 20-cigarette pack. New York City imposes its own $1.50 tax on a pack of cigarettes, bringing the local and state tax to $5.85 inside the city.

“New York state has made tremendous progress in achieving record-low smoking rates over the last decade, but still, more than two million adults continue to smoke, contributing to the death of 28,000 adults each year,” Rosenthal said in her legislative justification for the bill. “Currently, more than 750,000 adults in the state are living with a smoking-related illness. In order to continue seeing a decline in the state’s smoking rates and smoking-related deaths, we must periodically increase the tax on cigarettes.”

According to the Tax Foundation, New York is tied with Connecticut, with the two states’ $4.35-a-pack tax the highest in the nation among states, though Washington, D.C., charges a $4.50-a-pack tax.

The excise tax in New York state is paid when a licensed cigarette stamping agent purchases New York state tax stamps from the state Tax Department. As evidence of payment of the state tax, stamps must be affixed to the bottom of each pack of cigarettes sold in New York state. A joint New York state and New York City tax stamp is evidence that both the state and city excise taxes were paid. In addition to the excise tax, the agent pays a prepaid sales tax at the time the cigarette tax stamps are purchased and passes that tax on to wholesalers and retailers. The state also charges a 75% excise tax on cigars and tobacco products, $2 per container of snuff with one ounce of tobacco or less and $2 per ounce of snuff and a proportional rate on any fractional amount for containers with more than one ounce. That tax is paid by a distributor when the distributor imports tobacco products into this state or causes them to be imported.

Earlier this year, legislation sponsored by Rosenthal to ban the sale of flavored electronic cigarettes, including menthol and mint, was included in the 2020-21 state budget. In addition to the bill to ban the sale of flavored e-cigarettes, the final budget also included Rosenthal’s bill to prohibit the use of coupons and other price reduction instruments to lower the price of vape products. Rosenthal previously authored laws to ban the sale of e-cigarettes and liquid nicotine to minors, to include e-cigarettes in the State’s Clean Indoor Air Act, to prohibit possession of e-cigarettes on school grounds, and to prohibit the distribution of free e-cigarette samples to minors and to raise the statewide smoking and vaping age to 21 years old.

The final budget also prohibited the sale of vaping products online and the sale of tobacco products in pharmacies statewide. E-cigarette manufacturers will now be required to include a list of ingredients on their labels and will no longer be permitted to advertise their products within 500 feet of a school.