TAMPA, Fla. – The U.S. Congress is eyeing legislation that could increase taxes on premium cigars by as much as 20,000 percent, the St. Petersburg Times reports. The tax hike is part of the federal government's overall increase in tobacco excise taxes, earmarked to fund children's health insurance.

Currently, cigars are taxed at a nickel each; the proposed increase could kick that up to as much as $10 per cigar.

"I'm not sure in the history of man, since our forefathers founded the country in 1776, that there's ever been a tax increase of 20,000 percent," said Eric Newman, who runs a cigar-rolling business in Tampa founded by his grandfather. "They had the Boston Tea Party for less than this."

Cigars are "small potatoes" compared to cigarettes. In 2006, 5.3 billion cigars were sold, compared to the nearly 400-billion cigarettes sold domestically.

Both the House and Senate are considering legislative proposals to raise the federal excise tax on cigarettes by 61 cents per pack, making the federal tax $1 per pack. NACS opposes the tax hike.

Cigarettes accounted for more than 95 percent of tobacco tax collections in 2005, but the bill also addresses cigar taxes. Right now, the industry has a 4.8-cents-per-cigar tax cap. The measure proposes taxes on "large cigars" that would increase to 53 percent. The Senate version sets the maximum tax at a whopping $10 per cigar.

"We are a very small industry. We're the fly. The cigarette industry is the elephant as far as tax collections are concerned," Newman told the newspaper. "We've been roped in with conglomerates that own cigarette companies."

Norm Sharp, president of the Cigar Association of America, thought the legislation had a typo. "I thought they meant 10 cents per cigar, not $10 per cigar. I was stunned like everyone else," Sharp said.