Massachusetts voters will confront taxes on cigarettes and tobacco, as well as tough new packaging requirements, when voting on four state ballot questions in next week's election.

Question 1

Question One would implement a tax on cigarettes and smokeless tobacco products, with proceeds going to a newly created Health Protection Fund. Under the proposed law, revenues placed in the Health Protection Fund would be appropriated by the legislature for various educational and social programs relating to tobacco use.

Examples include school health education programs, workplace-based smoking cessation programs and community health center prenatal programs incorporating information on the effects of smoking on fetal development.

The proposed tax increase would be 25 cents for a regular pack of 20 cigarettes and 25 percent of the wholesale price of smokeless tobacco products.

Supporters say the tax, besides raising revenue, will cut down on the commonwealth's smoking rate and save lives, through discouraging smoking and educating children of its dangers.

Carrie Devine, an American Cancer Society worker involved with the campaign, said since California voters passed a similar referendum in 1988, smoking rates have declined there by 17 percent--double the national rate.

Opponents, however, call the tax another burden on working families, and say it will only force business across state borders. Marianne Preskul-Ricca, communications director for the Committee Against Unfair Taxes, said projections from a Price-Waterhouse study showed that small business would lose $215 million a year if the tax increase passes.

Preskul-Ricca also said that since initiatives cannot earmark revenues for certain purposes, the legislature will have total control over how the funding is spent and there is no guarantee on how the tax money will be spent.

Question 2

Question Two appears to be largely moot even before the referendum goes to Massachusetts citizens next week.

Activists on both sides of the question reached a compromise last month which, thorough legislation to be passed early next year, will supersede the initiative regardless of the election's outcome.

The ballot measure would require banks, insurance companies and publicly-traded corporation to publicly disclose all income and state tax payments, beginning in 1993.

The compromise legislation would also require this disclosure, but would publish the results only in aggregate form, not by individual company.

The compromise would further create a task force to study all Massachusetts' taxes on business, with a report to be issued by May 31, 1993 proposing changes to the corporate tax system.