ATHENS – Repeated hikes in Greece’s cigarette tax – now 90 percent of the cost of a pack – has driven down tobacco tax revenues and driven people to an underground market. One of the easy so-called “sin taxes,” cigarettes and tobacco represent easy targets for governments needing revenue except that the hikes are having the opposite effect, the newspaper Kathimerini said. The taxes are costing the government about 800 million euros ($851.12 million) annually in potential revenues as people turn to smuggled cigarettes, which are even sold in the open on the streets. The ruling Radical Left SYRIZA-led coalition, after promising to cut taxes, has added another 40-50 cents to a pack of cigare... [Read more]