N.Y. asks online cigarette buyers to cough up tax

News.com ^ | 1/14/2004 | Reuters

[Zon]

N.Y. asks online cigarette buyers to cough up tax

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Friday that smokers who bought cigarettes over the Internet had better be prepared to cough up taxes they tried to avoid by going online.

"The law says you got to pay your taxes. The handful of people who don't are just stealing from the rest of us," Bloomberg said in a weekly radio address.

The city's finance department this week sent letters to 3,700 smokers asking them to fork over $1.3 million in city taxes from Internet tobacco purchases. 

The annual loss to the city from online tobacco sales totals $40 million, according to Joanna Perlman, a finance department spokeswoman. Some individuals owed as much as $10,000.

"If you have a bill for $10,000 for cigarette taxes, you're a dealer, you're not just smoking," Bloomberg said.

"The finance commissioner is required by the city charter to enforce the law. It's against the law to buy something out of state and bring it in and avoid sales tax," he said. 

[LauraleeBraswell]

And yet, he looks the other way on illegal immigration....

[BurbankKarl]

Internet sales are exempt pal...especially from Indian Reservations.

http://www.bigindian.com/

[stylin19a]

It's against the law to buy something out of state and bring it in and avoid sales tax," he said.

There has to be more to this law than this.

[seacapn]

I think a polite 'no' is in order.

[drt1]

"The law says you got to pay your taxes. The handful of people who don't are just stealing from the rest of us,"

How about "The politicians who waste and abscond with taxpayers money are stealing from every one of US"

This guy impresses me less and less every day.

[Mears]

ping

[AirForceMom]

We can't even smoke in an open air stadium and yet they want smokers to foot the bill to dig out this sorry @ss state. Gotta love living in NY.

[A Jovial Cad]

Were I the recipient of such a notice, I'd wad it up and throw it in the trash without a second thought. And dare the city of New York to try and legally enforce such a ludicrous "assessment."

[cyborg]

Actually, no wasn't what I was thinking. It was more along the lines of STFU Bloomberg.

[seacapn]

That, too. Bloomberg needs to learn that in this modern world of internet orders, you can't just tax things to death and expect people to pay up and smile for the privilege.

[Graybeard58]

"If you have a bill for $10,000 for cigarette taxes, you're a dealer, you're not just smoking," Bloomberg said.

How does New York know what somebodies cigarette bill is?

[AirForceMom]

Thats what I was wondering. How would they get information like that?

[Bommer]

Ah the lovely world of the Democrap who turned Republican and remained a Democrap! Is there a tax this @sshole doesn't like?

[RandallFlagg]

Beat me to the ping.

[reformed_democrat]

How did the auditors get the names, addresses, and purchase records of these smokers? Isn't a person's mail private anymore?

[Larry Lucido]

Probaly some provision in the Patriot Act. Second hand smoke is a form of terrorism, ya know.

[groanup]

Screw Bloomberg, millionaire squirt. What audacity. Go get your taxes from someone else. Leave the smokers alone, they have already paid the state of New York billions.

[kingu]

How does New York know what somebodies cigarette bill is?

They ask the big online sellers of cigarettes to give them printouts of purchasers in a particular zip code.

[Jaysun]

"If you have a bill for $10,000 for cigarette taxes, you're a dealer, you're not just smoking," Bloomberg said.

What if you have a bill for more than $3,500? That's the average amount being asked of the 3700 letter recipients. I don't smoke, but I can't imagine how long it must take to amass such a sum in cigarette taxes. I didn't even know they sold cigarettes over the internet (it makes sense when you consider the tax savings for internet purchases).

It seems to me that Bloomberg and his henchmen are at fault for the "lost funds". They dropped the ball by not having a better system by which to extort the money from the smokers. What were the smokers to do, drop a few bucks in the mail twice a day?