That'll teach the bloody troublemakers to respect our authority!
Posted on 12/05/2014 7:21:33 AM PST by Citizen Zed
Did New York kill black market cigarette dealer Eric Garner over lost cigarette tax revenue?
Yes.
His was a senseless killing, of course. Garner shouldn't have died. He shouldn't have resisted arrest. And he shouldn't have been choked by New York police, who inhumanely ignored his pleas for help and used a procedure that violated department rules.
But it seems to me that Garner's death is being absorbed by the usual litany of race and politics, diluted and obscured, so we have difficulty seeing another explanation for what happened here.
Garner died because he dared interfere with government reach and government muscle that didn't want to lose tax revenue to independent operators.
In Chicago, loosies are sold for 50 cents each, or two for $1. The Tribune reported in November 2013 that Chicago police had arrested 781 people for selling loosies so far that year and issued 490 citations at $1,000 each.
Chicago has the highest cigarette taxes in the nation; with a $1.18 cent-per-pack city tax, plus a $3-per-pack Cook County tax and a $1.98-per-pack state tax. Add the federal cigarette tax of $1.01 and the total comes to $7.17 per pack.
But New York is second, with combined federal, city, county and state cigarette taxes at $6.86 per pack.
When highly addictive legal drugs are taxed at higher and higher rates, the tax increases are invitations for independent dealers to emerge.
"Some politician also had to direct the police to say, 'Hey, we want you arresting people for selling a loose cigarette,'" Sen. Rand Paul, the Kentucky Republican, said the other day. "And for someone to die over breaking that law, there really is no excuse for it. But I do blame the politicians; we've put our police in a difficult situation with bad laws."
(Excerpt) Read more at my.chicagotribune.com ...
Just a side thought: if I buy a pack of cigs, the tax has been paid, so why can’t I do what I please with them, whether it be smoke them, eat them, sell them one by one, or stick them up my butt? Its not like people buying loosies are going to start buying whole packs anyway, and if I can’t sell them as such I am less likely to buy a pack. Seem like a counterproductive law.
Land of the fee...home of the slave....
OBEY!
An d speaking of slaves, be sure to file yer tax return on time, too - so's Val Jarrett's flying monkeys can give it a look-see over at the White House to make sure you're having the correct thoughts, an' all...
Enough of this Sean Hannity type of nonsense. I think this line of argument takes away from the real point.
Solicitors who sell anything in public, who do so in front of other people's retail stores are a nuisance. When Giuliani became mayor he created special police units to crack down on ALL soliciting, for both legal and illegal items. Does anybody remember when squeegee guys would solicit business by cleaning windows or when sidewalk vendors overran many areas.
People didn't like that and police units were created to sweep from the streets those nuisances.
Garner was a nuisance. The merchants who's stores he used to stand in front of and hassle the customers called the police as they have done numerous times before. The police responded. Big Government didn't call the police. The citizen merchants did.
Sure Big Local Government does like its tax receipts. But let's keep it real here. Garner wasn't a tax rebel hero. He was a big fat nuisance and the citizen merchants who played by the rules didn't like that, so they called the police.
The cigarettes are bootleg. The NY taxes are not paid. Someone isn’t buying a pack inside a store in NY and then selling them loose outside.
They are smuggling them in from low tax states, not paying NY state, county, city taxes. That is what this is about - lost revenue.
Whenever taxes are too high, a black market is encouraged. For 50 cents/pack, it’s not worth driving to Virginia to get a truckload. For $5/pack it is.
When gov’t sets the taxes too high, they encourage the black market.
If the selling of loosies wasn't illegal, as foolish as that seems, then I would agree.
Just as the Founding Fathers envisioned, there's now a law against EVERYTHING.
Can't he be a patriot by changing the law?
"In both cases, the seized phones—one of which is an iPhone 5S—are encrypted and cannot be cracked by federal authorities. Prosecutors have now invoked the All Writs Act, an 18th-century federal law that simply allows courts to issue a writ, or order, which compels a person or company to do something."
Or, just as productive, he could try emptying the ocean with a coffee cup. LOL! :)
Oh, and BTW - "the law" doesn't apply to our Owners and Masters. IRS files at the White House = thousands upon thousands of serious felonies. They'll serve as much time as Bill Clinton...
Garner died because he dared interfere with government reach and government muscle that didn't want to lose tax revenue to independent operators.
If Garner was white, we would have never heard of him. He might not have even made the front page of the local news.
I thought Garner bought the cigarettes at retail, and simply was reselling the individually?
If so, they weren’t “untaxed”.
Even if Garner was selling legal items and paying the sales taxes, most likely the merchants who's store he was selling in front of, would have still called the police, and he would have still been in violation for soliciting.
Others claim that the swarm of police was hanging around the neighborhood, and didn't like the fact that Garner had broken up a fight moments before.
In other words: "the merchants didn't call the cops - they were already there."
Yes, he is a nuisance and the legitimate business owners have a beef. They play by the rules.
Is there some article that specifically states that the merchants "called the police", or is it just that they'd called the police in the past?
There's a difference.
That'll teach the bloody troublemakers to respect our authority!
But fighting serious crime is too much like work, and, worse, one of the cops might get hurt!
Puts a different complexion on it.
“So, it’s ok for me to sell bottles of beer on the street corner? How about cocaine? Lotsa people what those products.”
We could do it in 1776, why not now?
Code violators do.
I'm just sayin'...
I heard on a Geraldo radio broadcast (no I don't listen to his show except by mistake) that the local merchants would make complaints their about Garner and other solicitors.
Please clarify your point.
I can only dream!
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