AB 1396: Public health finance.

The Cigarette and Tobacco Products Tax Law, the violation of which is a crime, imposes a tax of $0.87 per package of 20 cigarettes on every distributor of cigarettes and a tax on the wholesale cost of tobacco products distributed at a tax rate that is equivalent to the combined rate of all taxes imposed on cigarettes, and at a rate equivalent to $0.50 per pack cigarette tax. Revenues from taxes imposed under this law are deposited in specified accounts. These taxes are inclusive of the taxes imposed under the Tobacco Tax and Health Protection Act of 1988 (Proposition 99) and the California Children and Families Act of 1998 (Proposition 10).

This bill would require moneys collected and deposited in the California Tobacco Tax Act of 2015 Fund from an additional tax to be imposed on the distribution of cigarettes, a related floor stock tax, and a cigarette indicia adjustment tax to be transferred from that fund to the California Children and Families Trust Fund, which is a continuously appropriated fund, thereby making an appropriation, the Cigarette and Tobacco Products Surtax Fund, the Breast Cancer Fund, and the General Fund, as necessary to offset revenue decreases to those funds directly resulting from additional taxes to be imposed.

This bill would also make funds of accounts in the California Tobacco Tax Act of 2015 Fund available to specified state entities upon appropriation by the Legislature to supplement tobacco prevention and control programs, to improve existing programs to provide quality and access to health care programs for families and children, and to supplement funding for the enforcement of laws that regulate the distribution and sale of cigarettes and other tobacco products, as specified.

This bill would require the Department of Justice, the State Department of Public Health, the State Department of Education, the State Department of Health Care Services, and would request the Regents of the University of California, annually to publish an accounting of moneys received from the fund on their respective Internet Web sites.

This bill would become operative only if SB 591 of the 201516 Regular Session is also enacted and takes effect on or before January 1, 2016.