Posted on 01/14/2005 9:09:13 PM PST by Zon
N.Y. asks online cigarette buyers to cough up tax
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Friday that smokers who bought cigarettes over the Internet had better be prepared to cough up taxes they tried to avoid by going online.
"The law says you got to pay your taxes. The handful of people who don't are just stealing from the rest of us," Bloomberg said in a weekly radio address.
The city's finance department this week sent letters to 3,700 smokers asking them to fork over $1.3 million in city taxes from Internet tobacco purchases.
The annual loss to the city from online tobacco sales totals $40 million, according to Joanna Perlman, a finance department spokeswoman. Some individuals owed as much as $10,000.
"If you have a bill for $10,000 for cigarette taxes, you're a dealer, you're not just smoking," Bloomberg said.
"The finance commissioner is required by the city charter to enforce the law. It's against the law to buy something out of state and bring it in and avoid sales tax," he said.
We are the last, safe bastion of legalized extortion.
That idiot won't allow people to smoke publicly but he wants the money from cigarette taxes! What a hypocrite!
Bloomberg and New York can kiss our butts!!!!!!!!
I quit smoking thirty four years ago, I am immune from their threats.
Can you NY smokers envision just how much more pleasure than smoking, you could derive from quitting enmasse, and watching Bloomberg begging New Yorkers to go back to smoking for the sake of the government that needs the taxes they put on smokers, a hell of a lot more than smokers need the big government that can't live without tobacco taxes?
Absolute power corrupts absolutely, but what the heck smokers-excersizing your absolute powers could clean your lungs while washing the corruption from government. It's a win, win situation for you smokers and catch as catch can, crow eating situation for your foes.
What next? NY State Customs offices at all state boundaries?
And from cigarettes, they'll move on to ANY and ALL purchases on the net...That's the game plan. They figure cigarettes is the most plausible to start with.
Has anyone asked just HOW they got the names and purchases off the Internet? Doesn't sound legal to me
If Bloomie has his way, that'll be the monthly tax bill for someone smoking a pack a day.
These people truly do not get it.
Good deal on cigs there - $2.75 a pack. But, you have to buy 5 cartons at a time.
That's the ticket. It's not against the law to grow tobacco. And home grown comes without all the chemicals -
Hmmm keep it up Bloombugger, When you go too far, folks will find another way.
I stopped smoking decades ago, when packs were only 35 cents - think of the money I've saved@
But this reminds me of when - back during the Carter Regime, when they purposely drove up the price of gas and fuel oil by shutting down wells - the folks up here in Maine said, Helllo NO, we ain't gonna pay it and fixed up their chimneys, put in a wood stove and went back to wood heat. And a great majority still burn wood today.
[01/13/05]
The Finance Department has ordered smokers who bought tax-free cigarettes on the Internet to pay city taxes on their purchases.
The demands were made in letters mailed this week, The Daily News and The New York Post reported in Thursday editions.
"This is the first time we've done this," Finance Commissioner Martha Stark told the News. "It's part of a new, long-term effort to ensure we're enforcing the cigarette tax laws."
The city mailed letters to about 2,300 people whose names were obtained from the Web site Cigs4Cheap.com, which is no longer operating, the News said. The letters warned that recipients who failed to pay the back taxes would be penalized up to $200 for every carton purchased online.
In 2002, New York City smokers began paying $1.50 in city tax on a pack of cigarettes _ up from the previous 8 cents a pack. Combined with a state tax increase, the cost of a typical pack of cigarettes in the city jumped to a nation-high $7.50.
Hoping to avoid paying the taxes, some smokers turned to Internet sites, mail-order catalogs and tax-exempt Indian merchants.
200.00 PER carton fine.
You would have to be quite the chain smoker to run up a tax bill like that.
Suppose the state sales tax on a pack of cigarettes is $2.50 per pack and the tax bill is for one year. You would have to smoke about 28 packs a day to run up that kind of a tax bill. Over two years it would be 14 packs a day.
Common sense says that someone with that kind of a tax bill is bringing them in to sell.
Bloomberg doesn't realize how creative people can get. Let him triple all taxes and create an undergound economy.
The question was, "How does New York know what somebodies cigarette bill is" not whether they are bringing them in to sell, that part is fairly obvious. They aren't paying taxes and that's what New York wants. So they woldn't have a tax bill for New York to see.
All this does is establish the need to buy those prepaid visa cards and use some other name.
Perhaps thos corner bar package stores will make a comeback.
If this is true why limit it to cigarettes. Under Bloomberg's theory ANYTHING ordered on the Internet and delivered to his taxing jurisdiction should be subject to Sales Tax. Don't think that will fly very far.
Taxes are actually a bit higher than that, around 3-3.50 per ( example- Marlboros at the res. were 22.50 today, at Tops they are 47.00 + tax). I know my brother in law makes runs each week for family and co-workers and they pay him back when he gives them to them. If he's charging them, it would look like he's buying and reselling them.
I remember driving from the 32nd Street Naval Base in San Diego to the Air Force Base out by Riverside to get cartons for $5.00 each. Then, in October of '96, there were little signs on the racks that read, "In order to promote healthier lifestyles, we will be raising out cigarette prices to competative levels."
Made me want to puke.
What I want to know is if they're going to go after folks out of state who bought cigs from NY-based companies, like Senecasmokes.com.
Will I be getting a bill?
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