And people wonder why citizens are fed up with govt?
Oh my.
Cigarette taxes are a big deal. I am surprised the gov’t would go to this extreme however. I think the requirement to collect is on the vendor and she will be able to contest this.
ping
It's not generally true in the legal sense. And it apparently is true in the practical sense for cigarettes, since she did it. The question is whether you can do it without getting caught.
More proof that it is the government which has the worst addiction to tobacco. It really should start cutting back.
OTOH, if she doesn't pay her property tax to give those hardworking public school gym teachers their $90,000 salaries & bennies so they can have two homes and Beemers, well the sheriff will come knocking.
The $1,500 owed in cigarettes taxes are now up to $6,000 with late fees and interest.
The state gets the $6,000 if she sells her house.
Hey PA, why bother collecting taxes on each pack of cigarettes, when you can just put a liens on every smokers house? That’s a great idea!
Which items are those?
You are supposed to pay state tax on online purchases in states that have it, Illinois this week started going after all online taxes - Amazon dumped state affiliated businesses.
Massachusetts has a Use Tax section on state tax forms that everyone is supposed to fill out for all out of state purchases - no one does it...They don't go after those YET, but buy cigarettes online, which is illegal now (PACT act), you'll get a bill.
$1,500 tax bill comes to roughly 94 cartons of cigarettes ($16 PA state tax per carton) - most likely bought over years.
land of the free, home of the...
I had no idea cigarettes had gotten that expensive!
That's a bit excessive.
Censure her and move on.
On the other hand, maybe it's time to invent a menthol injection device for Marlboros.
But her days of purchasing the cigarettes online are over because she said the state caught her.
The real story here is: Just how does the State catch people who order things on-line, which are then delivered to them in neutral brown-paper packages?
Regards,
Eventually, she’s likely wind up with lung cancer, heart disease, COPD, or some combination of the three. When that happens, she’ll be “disabled”, probably go into subsidized public housing, and will collect SSDI and go on Medicaid to pay to maintain what’s left of her major organ systems. Eventually, we’ll likely all be paying to support every aspect of her existence through our taxes, for no reason other than her own selfish need to choose a voluntary behavior which destroyed her body.
I see this sort of thing every day in my line of work; it’s a big part of why our health care system is such a mess and we’re so broke.
Just wanted to give another angle on this.
If she’d knock her habit down to TWO packs of cigarettes a day she’d be able to pay her taxes.
She should have purchasing the cigarettes from Lenny down at the trucking docks,lower price no taxes and Lenny takes care of his customers.
History may be repeating itself, with perhaps a different result this time around.
Thought I’d ping you to this thread