it should be illegal to tax something MORE than it tales to MAKE!!!
Posted on 06/12/2011 4:35:53 AM PDT by lowbridge
City Hall for the first time is directly blaming Big Tobacco for the burgeoning black market of bootleg cigarettes on city streets.
Newport maker Lorillard, the country's No. 3 tobacco company, consciously oversupplies the Poospatuck Indian reservation on Long Island -- knowing full well bootleggers buy in bulk and then flood city neighborhoods with unstamped, cheap smokes, a city official told The Post.
"If Afghanistan is the seed of the heroin trade, then Lorillard is like that with cigarettes," said Eric Proshansky, a deputy chief in the city Law Department. "Lorillard knows its cigarettes are being bootlegged into the city, and they have refused to stop supplying the reservation, and that's because they know . . . [the trade is] boosting their sales tremendously."
Marlboro maker Philip Morris discontinued business with wholesalers supplying the Poospatucks in 2008, leaving Lorillard as the chief supplier, according to the city.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Well, this is simply another example of racism...trying to get the black man addicted to menthol cigarettes. (sarc.)
I will freely admit that my knowledge of Indian reservations is very limited but wouldn’t taxing cigarettes deprive the reservation of a critical source of income and violate several of the treaties made with them? I wonder if the Indians (sorry native americans) will fight back.
Who says they have an obligation to ensure the collection of taxes that are used to support the people that are trying to destroy their business?
The Lorillards are an old, old New York family once synonymous with philanthropy. The company only left NYC in the late 1990s. I guess the goal is to drive every business from NY.
it should be illegal to tax something MORE than it tales to MAKE!!!
The thing that most don’t realize in regards to the Indian Cigarette biz here in NY is that only State tax is in question. The Indians are paying federal taxes on the sales and resulting income generated on the Res. That’s why the Feds have pretty much stayed out of the issue.
According to the article they are appealing the court ruling.
I remember semis pulled over on US 301 in the 50s and 60s being checked for unstamped cigarettes.
Even then, with smokes at a quarter a pack (or less) south of the Mason-Dixon Line, there was enough profit incentive for guys to haul cigarettes North to New York from the Carolinas.
The wild-eyed increase in taxes on the one person in five who smokes hasn't change the dynamic.
Government is huge, self indulgent, and greedy. And is making everyone's life miserable, except for the elite leeches and the leeches who live off of other people's blood, sweat and tears. The best way government can deflect criticism from it self is to demonize those the government feeds off of.
It started much earlier than prohibition. It started before the US was a country. It started with our founding fathers and the English tax on molasses. It is deeply ingrained in our DNA that when taxes become unfair we fine a way around it. We get better accountants, smokers buy from alternate sources, we buy goods from counties and states with less sales tax. We are a creative people.
The libs seem to think taxation is linear. They actually think that if taxes are raise by x the revenues will rise by x. When liberal Bloomberg raised the cigarette tax he must have been shocked that the revenues dropped. He failed to understand that when taxes become oppressive, the people find alternatives. Bloomberg is the cause of Bloomberg’s tax problems. He is just another pro-tax’em to death liberal.
Tobacco is very easy and cheap for me to grow. I am not surprised at this article. It is more than just taxes its regs as well. Like the FDA mandated last year that if your not constantly taking a drag off your cigarette it will go out. I cannot imagine the chemicals required to do that.
“(New York) City blames Big Tobacco for cigarette black market”
LOL!! The citizens of NYC must be proud of the fools who represent them.
The government may think they KNOW but what can they PROVE. The idiots are in charge of the government. People like Bloomberg are the biggest tyrants around...
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