It&#x27;s not taxing the poor in general that&#x27;s bad. It&#x27;s when the tax has a disproportionate impact on the poor compared to the rich. They&#x27;re regressive and generally considered bad because when designing a tax to pay for say a welfare project that is supposed to benefit the poor taxing them to pay for it is counter intuitive.<p>I&#x27;m split on this tax though since it&#x27;s a sin tax so on one hand it doesn&#x27;t really work to tax someone who isn&#x27;t a smoker but on the other it&#x27;s not working so why increase the burden on the poor unless it&#x27;s preventing new smokers?