HB 987

Present law requires every dealer or distributor of tobacco products to pay a tax for the privilege of selling cigarettes and tobacco products in Tennessee. The tax for selling cigarettes is 3.1 cents per cigarette, plus an enforcement and administration fee of 0.05 cents per pack. The tax on all other tobacco products, including, but not limited to, cigars, cheroots, stogies, beedies, bidis, manufactured tobacco, and snuff of all descriptions made of tobacco or any substitute for tobacco (but excluding smokeless nicotine products) , is 6.6% of the wholesale cost price . This bill defines "heated tobacco product"" to mean a product containing tobacco that produces an inhalable aerosol: ( 1 ) By heating the tobacco by means of a device without combustion of the tobacco; or ( 2 ) By heat generated from a combustion source th at only or primarily heats rather than burns the tobacco . This bill classifies heated tobacco products as cigarettes for purposes of the privilege tax on selling cigarettes in Tennessee; provided, that the tax rate on each cigarette that is a heated toba cco product is 0.15 cents ."