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The state House and Senate spent the day hammering out vastly different spending plans that dig into your pocket in fundamentally different ways. As Mike Vasilinda tells us, no matter what direction lawmakers take, taxpayers will be paying more.

Cigarettes could soon be costing you as much a dollar a pack more.

A cigar tax got a reprieve, but the State senate is pushing ahead with a dollar a pack tax on cigarettes and smokeless tobacco.

“It’s 33 cents. We’re well below the national average,” Sen. Ted Deutch (D-Boca Raton) said. “By increasing it a dollar and putting a surcharge on it, we’re only going to get to the national average and it’s going to generate a billion dollars for our health care budget.”

If the senate doesn’t get you with higher tobacco taxes, the House will get you on higher drivers’ license fees.

Late renewal fees go from one to ten dollars. Reinstating a suspended license will  jump from ten to 15 dollars. Buying license plates will double in most cases.  House members say the fees target users.

“We looked at a lot of fees that haven’t been increased in many, many years and tried to bring that up to the current date,” Rep. Marcelo Llorente (R-Miami) said. “And we did that as opposed to, at this point, increasing cigarette taxes and any other taxes.”

But Democrats in the House complain the fees are still a tax and don’t solve long range problems.

“They largely just fall on the responsibilities of working families,” Rep. Kelly Skidmore (D-Boca Raton) said. “We’re not looking at any corporate taxes, any of the sales tax exemptions, we’re not looking at an increased sales tax, a penny sales tax.

A final plan needs to be in place by May First. The new fees, whatever they are,  will take effect July first.

The next step is for sponsors of the two different approaches to fight it out. Figure out where they can agree, and decide who will pay what. One item already agreed on is a most costly fishing license.