Posted on 05/04/2011 11:47:53 PM PDT by brityank
Online cigarette buyers hit with taxes
She lost her job. She lost her husband. She lost her home. And that's when the state Department of Revenue delivered yet another blow, a $9,876 lien on Judy Christy's assets for cigarettes she had bought and smoked years ago.
Ms. Christy, of Butler County, was one of tens of thousands of Pennsylvanians caught up in the state's ongoing sweep of people who bought cigarettes by the carton online and failed to pay the state's sales and excise taxes.
Similar sweeps have been carried out in other states.
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As a result of a federal law that requires cigarette vendors to share buyer information with the states, Pennsylvania's Revenue Department learned that Ms. Christy had purchased 232 cartons of cigarettes online between April 2005 and October 2007. The excise and sales taxes she owed on those cartons, plus interest, was $3,928.90.She worked out a payment plan with the state: a $395 down payment in June 2008, then $99 a month after that. She paid until the following spring, which is when she lost her job at Farmers National Bank, she said. Five months later, her husband died, and she moved out of her husband's home ...
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What she owed on the original tax debt, after making nine months of payments, was roughly $2,300 in back taxes. But the state also included in its claim about $7,000 in legal fees, penalties and interest, according to Ms. Christy."I don't have an issue paying them what I owe them," she said. "But where do they get off hitting me for $7,000 in legal fees for a legal filing that costs $125, tops?"
(Excerpt) Read more at post-gazette.com ...
The government has become the enemy of the people.
When I still smoked I bought mine online and once they hit New Jersey with the back tax thing I knew it was a matter of time over here in PA.
Good thing for me is, I only smoked a pack a day...Not 5 or whatever her number comes up to.
Price was the main reason I quit too, but that don’t mean I’m paying back taxes without a fuss.
She lost her job and home but can afford to smoke?
30 months / 232 cartons = 7.7333... cartons per month
7.3333... / 30 days = 0.25777 cartons per day.
0.25777 cartons * 20 packs/carton = 5 packs a day.
Pretty hard to smoke that much by yourself.
For the record, the "rulers" make more profit on the sale of just about anything than the stockholders of the company that produced whatever was sold. It's called sales tax. The only investment a State has to make is in a few police and a bunch of prisons.
ML/NJ
No State shall, without the Consent of the Congress, lay any Imposts or Duties on Imports or Exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing it's inspection Laws;
Her husband was still alive during this time and was most probably a smoker also.
Divide the 232 by 2 (assuming 2 smokers in the family) and that is 116 cartons per person for those 130 weeks.
That is less than 1 carton per person per week.
P.S. Your math goes off when you figure 20 packs per carton - there are only 10.
ping
Not a thing.
Did the truck not drive on Pennsylvania roads during delivery?
Roads that are already paid for by the trucking license fees and gasoline taxes.
Did they come by the Postal System?
Since when do the states have the authority to tax federal government agencies (or pseudo agencies in this case)?
Did Pennsylvanians handle the boxes at all?
Any tax on this labor (assuming for the moment that it should be taxed) would show up in the income tax on those laborers wages.
You see Pennsylvania DEFINITELY had something to do with the process.
PA had nothing to do with it. She bought them out of state just as surely as if she had driven out of state to pick themn up herself.
You make some very good points.
Sadly, you'll find lots of cheerleaders for the police state here.
Thank You
Yes. I remember those things down by the Delaware border coming up to Philly on I-95. I used to go out of my way to hit liqueur stores that were past the one closest to the PA border because I got the impression that they had someone checking plates at the one most convenient to the state line. There is nothing a state won't do if they think they are being cheated a nickle. PA is no different.
People come to Texas from Louisiana for our tax free weekends; we drive across state or county lines to pay less for gas, etc. 4th of July city folks buy fireworks in the county. Why do people always seem to get their tricots in a bind when we are talking about someone else wanting to buy cigarettes? IMO, people should be able to buy what they want to buy and if they can get it at less cost somewhere else, then go for it. I agree with RobRoy!
>>I guess the slaves were free. They just had to follow the law and work every day at their master’s plantation.<<
I believe the modern word for “slave” is “employee”. And as with slaves throughout history, some had benign slave masters and others suffered through more malevolent masters.
>>0.25777 cartons * 20 packs/carton = 5 packs a day.
Pretty hard to smoke that much by yourself.<
Usually what happens is that a group of people will get together and pool their money. Then one person orders or drives to the state to pick up the goods. However, if you drive there, they can’t charge back taxes. The state has to be able to prove you actually USED them in their state.
We are flying to California for a graduation this weekend. We’ll bring a suitcase with a couple of towels in it and fill it with booze, and bring it back full. We do this pretty much every time we fly to Chicago. My favorite tequila is $46 in Seattle, $27 in Chicago and $20 in California. And it is not so much the money as the principle. It is a form of going Galt, at least to me.
>>The government has become the enemy of the people.<<
I discovered that in 1997 when I sat through a lot of family court in prep for my own divorce. My perception of the US fundamentally changed that year. It is much worse now. It is dangerously close to how the Soviet Union was described to me in grade school and Jr High in the 60’s.
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