According to Justin Higginbottom’s Tax Foundation article, taxes on plastic bags have been disappointing in their debut:
Since January 2010, shoppers in Washington, D.C. have had to pay five cents on most paper or plastic bags at grocery and convenience stores. In early results, shoppers are often unwilling to pay, so carry-out bag use is greatly reduced, revenue from the tax is low, and the mayor has suggested transferring what little has been collected out of an environmental fund into a general fund. Whether the citizens consider the new tax a success depends on which of the many, often contradictory purposes they remember from the debate over passage.
In at least 15 states, bag tax proposals are pending (see table). Sometimes they are pitched as “fees” and sometimes as “taxes,” with important rhetorical, political and legal ramifications. In almost all cases, proposed bag taxes do not come close to meeting the definition of a fee. Even when pitched more honestly as taxes, they are likely to fall short of ambitious environmental clean-up goals. Also, bag taxes cause unintended effects, such as stimulating bulk purchases of plastic bags, perhaps of a type that would cause equal environmental damage. And bag taxes invariably get caught up in the political process in which special interests in business and government are served more than the public’s interest.
Whether assessed theoretically or practically, bag taxes are not a promising development in tax policy.
Below is a chart from Higginbottom’s article that lists proposed bag tax legislation:
| Proposed Legislation to Tax Bags | ||
| State | Legislation | Description |
| Alaska | AK S.B. 22 | 15 cents per plastic bag |
| California | CA A.B. No. 68 | At least 25 cents per paper plastic |
| Colorado | CO S.B. 156 (rejected Feb. 2009) | 6 cents per plastic bag |
| Connecticut | CT H.B. 5215 | 5 cents per paper or plastic bag |
| Hawaii | HI S.B. 2125 | 20 cents per plastic bag |
| Maine | ME S.P. 131 | 10 cents per plastic bag |
| Maryland | MD S.B. 462 | 5 cents per paper or plastic bag |
| Baltimore | Bill #08-0208 | 25 cents per paper or plastic bag |
| Massachusetts | MA H.B. 2686 | 5 cents per plastic bag |
| Nevada | NV S.B. 397 | 10 cents per plastic bag |
| New Jersey | NJ A.B. A.B. 2121 | 5 cents per paper or plastic bag |
| New York | NY S.B. No. 4866 | 5 cents per plastic bag |
| Rhode Island | RI S.B. 804 | 15 cents per plastic bag |
| Texas | TX H.B. 1361 | 7 cents for plastic bag |
| Vermont | VT H.B. 262 | 17 cents per plastic bag |
| Virginia | VA H.B. 1115 | 5 cents per paper or plastic |
| Note: Bag tax legislation generally only applies to carryout bags and may have exclusions similar to that of Washington D.C. | ||