Arizona has the highest percentage of cigarettes smuggled in than any state other than New York, even when accounting for those bought on Indian reservations. We are not necessarily talking about a dude in a trench coat, saying, “Pssst, wanna buy some smokes?”
But Todd Nesbit, a senior lecturer at Ohio State University who helped work on a study about this for the Tax Foundation, said between 2006 and 2012, Arizona’s cigarette tax rate increased 69 percent, and its smuggling rate went up almost 20 percent to 51.5 percent.
