A Senate bill that would add a 40-cent-per-pack tax on the state's No. 2 cigarette seller is touted as a financial windfall for Florida.

Based on purchases of 155 million packs last year, Dosal Tobacco customers would have coughed up an additional $62 million in state revenues. That increase would have bolstered the $365 million in fees Big Tobacco companies paid into the state's settlement fund in 2010.

But the Miami-based cigarette maker -- which is fighting renewed efforts to slap it with the same 14-year-old tax -- says that the math isn't so straightforward, and that the payoff would fall far short of expectations.

For starters, any price increase will send customers shopping for other competitive brands. Big Tobacco companies offer a host of discount smokes positioned to chip away at Dosal sales.

Yet any incremental increase in sales by Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds, Brown & Williamson, etc., would not translate into a full 40-cent-per-tax gain for state coffers. That's because Big Tobacco's payments are calculated through a complex formula that includes national sales.

Payments to the state's tobacco fund are figured at: 5.5 percent x $8 billion x national market share. Thus, selling additional cigarettes in Florida would only nudge Big Tobacco's bill by pennies on the dollar.

"A tax increase on Dosal will give the advantage to Marlboro's discount brand, so they will be purchased and none of the money promised will materialize. It is a shell game and a market share grab, period," said Sarah Bascom, a spokeswoman for Dosal.

Speaking of Big Tobacco, one person close to the situation said, "If they lose so much market share, they can reduce payments [to the state]. This allows them to manage their payouts and collect from their customers."

While Philip Morris estimates that imposing the same fee on Dosal as its competitors will bring at least $175 million more into the state's tobacco fund annually, Dosal believes the figure is closer to $4 million.

Other estimates have ranged from $30 million to $80 million.

The projections vary so wildly because of so many X-factors. In the recent past, higher cigarette taxes have reduced the number of smokers and eroded state revenues.

After Florida raised its cigarette tax (on all brands) by $1 a pack on July 1, 2009, sales plummeted 27 percent during the first five months.

Fiscal year 2010 cigarette-tax collections tumbled to $300,212,611 -- a 28 percent drop from the previous fiscal year and far short of the state's revenue projections.

A similar scenario is plausible this time around as price-conscious customers, squeezed by rising costs of food, fuel and other essentials, may further curb their smoking habit or just quit buying cigarettes altogether.

Black-market sales also increase any time fees are tacked on. This, too, tarnishes rosy revenue projections. Florida cigarette prices currently range from Dosal's $3.50 per pack to $6 for premium brand names.

The experience in Minnesota may be instructive.

When that state's Legislature brought so-called "nonparticipating manufacturers" into its tobacco settlement, sales of those brands declined sharply and their associated sales-tax revenues fell by half.

David Sutton, a lobbyist for Philip Morris/Altria, says Minnesota's overall cigarette revenue projections are "on track." He reported that the state's excise tax revenues increased 6.4 percent with fee -- from $161 million to $172 million.

Dosal lobbyist and attorney Mike Huey sees the numbers differently.

"Big Tobacco is paying pennies on the pack for picking up market share," Huey says. Dosal does not sell its product in Minnesota.