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Posted on 09/03/2007 6:33:18 PM PDT by Wheee The People
Nebraska trying to collect back cigarette taxes
Monday, September 3, 2007 4:44 PM CDT
LINCOLN, Neb. - The state of Nebraska has sent letters to more than 500 residents telling them they owe taxes for cigarettes they bought through the mail or over the Internet.
One of them, Cleo Bell of Adams, doesn't think the state cigarette tax is a fair tax. "We are already taxed to death on cigarettes," he said.
The 74-year-old buys cigarettes four cartons at a time through the mail by calling an 800 number.
The seller didn't collect the state cigarette tax of 64 cents a pack, nor the sales tax, but the law requires Bell to report those purchases and pay those taxes.
But now the state is collecting them, based on reports from the seller.
In July the state sent letters to 112 people who owed a total of $175,000. State tax commissioner Doug Ewald says about $100,000 has been paid so far.
On Aug. 16, 406 Nebraskans who owed more than $100 in back cigarette taxes were sent state letters. By the middle of last week, about $40,000 had been paid of the $190,000 those people owe, Ewald said.
Responding to one of the letters, estate representatives for one of the cigarette buyers sent in a copy of his death certificate. Ewald said the listed cause of death was lung cancer.
Bell said he's hoping to file a class-action suit against the tax, and he said the state collection efforts were unfair to smokers.
Nebraska doesn't go to such lengths to collect the sales tax owed by people who buy other products through the mail, he said.
Federal law requires those who sell and ship cigarettes into states to report those sales to the states.
But there's no such requirement for other sales, so states don't have the same database for such collection efforts, Ewald said.
It doesn't cost much to collect the cigarette tax from individuals, he said, because the sales information comes free from the sellers.
"Just pennies for every dollar collected," Ewald said.
LOL! That’s it!!
Hitler was a piker. He never understood the revenue potential of taxing addicts.
Hey whee, didn’t you get your silly butt kicked in the other thread earlier today? For a nanny stater, you’re not very profound. What would you like overtaxed next?
Let us know what your utopia would consist of.
> > > Howz the back tax effort going with them illegals?
If you’re downwind, you get secondhand Amnesty.
Pay in cash when possible.
LOL! You're just not blowin' smoke with that comment. These to could have a regular Hawaiian honeymoon. :)
Sure he did.
He taxed people addicted to liberty and freedom to death.
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“Let us know what your utopia would consist of.”
Here’s a thread that’s relevant to that utopia.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1890330/posts
When your outlook appears to inline with the breck girl, you’re in serious trouble.
Yeah 'cause being a tax cheat is such a conservative value. Oops... we'll call it tax avoidance rather than tax cheating so we can all feel better.
DAYUM, she’s HOT!!!
The best in awhile, that was funny.
Keep ‘em comin’, Ray.
I avoid all taxes I can and if you don't, then you are an idiot.
So what's your addiction Ray?
The nanny state's coming after you next. (Unless of course you're perfect.)
I really didn’t think you could come up with anything more stupid than your other comments, but you just proved me wrong with your last one.
You are a poster child for liberal morons.
“Yeah ‘cause being a tax cheat is such a conservative value”
Is this an assurance that you have reprorted all of your internet commerce to the tax authorities?
I would assume you have done so.
Even if I never inhaled?
There, all fixed
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