Posted on 06/09/2004 2:15:26 AM PDT by kattracks
TERRORISTS are increasingly turning to a different and highly lucrative funding scheme within the United States, according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Cigarette smuggling. It is an opportunity created for them by big-spending politicians.“This is a major priority for us,” Michael Bouchard, assistant director of the ATF, told The Washington Post yesterday. “The deeper we dig into these cases, the more ties to terrorism we’re discovering.”
A growing number of terrorist organizations are buying cartons of cigarettes in states such as Virginia and North Carolina, driving them to states such as Michigan and New York, which have very high cigarette taxes, and selling them at a huge profit — as much as $40 a carton.
Were it not for punitive cigarette taxes, this terrorism funding source would not exist. New York City’s combined state and local tax burden is $3 per pack, The Post reported. That makes a carton of cigarettes cost about $75, compared to $20 in Virginia. A single truckload of cigarettes can make the smuggler a cool $2 million.
As with prohibition, politicians will simply say that we must dedicate more law enforcement resources to fight cigarette smuggling. But if they would stop growing government on the backs of smokers, the problem would disappear instantly.
ping
Which of course goes to show you that a single truckload of cigarettes can make your local politician a cool two Million too, many times a day...
Uncle Sam does not like it when others take some of the action.
I wonder where all those thousands of Millions of "legitimate" bucks go. Most likely to hire more tax collectors...
The solution is obvious... the tax in NY should be reduced so there's no incentive to smuggle.
THAT is the obvious solution, but the probable solution would be for the taxes in VA and NC to be RAISED to match those of NY! (and the politicians have the gall to call US greedy...)
Predictable when you have 100 to 200 percent profit margins.
Selling bootleg cigs in NYC is now as profitable as selling crack.
Predictable when you have 100 to 200 percent profit margins.
Selling bootleg cigs in NYC is now as profitable as selling crack.
What is actually happening here is the birth and burgeoning of a new ethnic mafia to join in the competition with the Asian gangs and the Cripsandbloods and the Original Mafia and the Latino mob and the Jamaicans and the Russian mafia and all the rest. It is Diversity- truly multicultural crime and should be cherished and perhaps assigned enforced quotas to ensure that there is equal representation of all minorities in organized crime.
It isnt Uncle Sam its your State Government, that is killing the Goose that laid the Golden Egg. You can only raise taxes so much before a black market economy takes over.
Raising the taxes in all theother state would internationalize the market. Maybe we could involve the UN.
FBI caught a big Hezbollah cell here in Charlotte several years ago that was smuggling cigarettes. Everyone was shocked that a terrorist organization was in the area...
(I think it was prior to 9-11)
Does anyone suppose it ought to be illegal for a public agency to tax a product deemed dangerous to individual health. Isn't a tax a benefit for government? So for government to gain benefit from taxing a product which is not beneficial to someone else, is the right thing to do?
OTOH, even allowing the sale of something know to be harmful to some and expensive for the rest, Oh never mind, this could get really...
Nice clear article. Thanks for the ping, kiddo! ;-D And good morning!
As with prohibition, politicians will simply say that we must dedicate more law enforcement resources to fight cigarette smuggling. But if they would stop growing government on the backs of smokers, the problem would disappear instantly.
DUH.....................this is just common sense - something that seems to be greatly lacking in politicians.
Why should I, as a resident of VA......have to pay to fix a problem caused by greedy pols in NY?????
Makes about as much sense as arresting the home owner who's house has just been burglarized for owning the house that tempted the burlgar.
I don't know if it ought to be illegal, but you can mark my words on this one. The next round of multi-billion-dollar tobacco lawsuits will be directed not at cigarette manufacturers, but at the states themselves.
Any state that filed suit against the tobacco industry in the last decade on the grounds that cigarettes are a dangerous product, and then failed to act through its department of consumer protection to immediately prohibit the use of this dangerous product, has exposed itself to liability in civil court that will likely drive it into financial ruin.
Even Marxists in Canada figured this out about ten years ago, when cross-border smuggling of cigarettes grew dramatically in the wake of a huge cigarette tax increase -- they ended up scaling back the tax. There was an added problem in that case because much of the "smuggling" was perfectly legal. The Canadian government had no authority to restrict cigarette deliveries that were made through Native reservations (primarily in upstate New York) that straddled both sides of the border.
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