I don't know if he explained this to me right, but that is nonsense.
Posted on 02/20/2005 11:44:42 AM PST by tryon1ja
If you are a smoker you remember too well when Governor Granholm pushed to raise the state’s tax on tobacco products from a $1.25 to $2.00. This increase forced many smokers to find alternatives. Some people quit, some people cut back, or found a cheaper place to buy.
For many smokers they turned to the online vendor to purchase their tobacco products. It’s cheaper and best of all they don’t have to pay the $2.00 per pack sales tax. The luxury the internet shopper enjoys is the convenience of shopping at home. Products are less expensive and they think that it’s tax free. They may be wrong.
The State of Michigan see online and mail order purchases that do not collect and remit the six percent “use” tax as lost revenue the state should be receiving. The state estimates that it is losing $350 million dollars. So what is the state doing about it? It is sending notices to those individuals that the state says owe them back taxes.
Instead of her usual online cigarette purchases, Laura Rodriguez now buys at a Bay City party store. Rodriguez had been buying her cigarettes tax free at esmokes.com. She thought she was saving hundreds of dollars until she received a letter and a bill for back taxes from the Michigan Department of Treasury.
Rodriguez owes more than thirty-five hundred dollars to the state. The treasury is now collecting from people who don't pay Michigan's "use" tax. It requires people to pay a six percent tax on online and mail purchases not taxed in other states.
Rodriguez says she thinks smokers like her are being doubly penalized for trying to save money. Rodriguez made the comment that the State of Michigan should not care because her point of sale was in Kentucky; she also said that if she had bought a stone table instead of cigarettes, no one would have cared.
Rodriguez asked TV 5 to take a further look into her situation in an email she sent. So we did, and what we have learned from Terry Stanton of the State Department of Treasury is surprising. According to Terry, “Purchasing of cigarettes on the internet or through any other source outside the state is illegal unless the purchaser is licensed by the State under the Tobacco Products Act or the vendor is in compliance with the Act and stamps each individual pack and collects and remits the tax to the State.” Rodriguez tells TV 5 that the packs that she purchased from esmokes.com had the Kentucky stamp on all the packs. Is the blame to be put on esmokes.com for not charging her the State of Michigan tax?
Laura Rodriguez is being charged back taxes for 2002 through 2004 where the State is claiming that she needs to pay the cigarette tax and the use tax. The use tax for the four years totals around three hundred and fifty dollars. The remainder due which is roughly three thousand dollars is all cigarette tax.
Michigan is not the first state that has seen the opportunity to collect taxes for online cigarette purchases. In New York, New York City decided it would begin collecting taxes from some 2,300 city smokers that thought it was a good idea to buy their cigarettes online.
Is this all legal? Can the States and local city governments collect these taxes? They are and people are getting the notices. In the research that TV 5 conducted, a Supreme Court Case was uncovered that dealt with a similar situation instead of cigarettes it was office supplies.
In 1992 in the Supreme Court Case QUILL CORP. v. HEITKAMP, 504 U.S. 298 (1992)
504 U.S. 298, the Supreme Court held that the statute that was in place in North Dakota or any other state that required mail order businesses to collect “use” tax when the company has no physical contact with the state, violates the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution. The catch in the decision was that the statute did not violate the Due Process Clause of the U.S. Constitution, and it would allow Congress to enact further legislation. If Congress wishes to do so, it can regulate the trade between states and require that mail order or internet business has to pay a “use” taxes which means the business is going to pass that tax onto the consumer.
Resources:
State Of Connecticut Department of Revenue Services
http://www.ct.gov/drs/cwp/view.asp?a=1514&q=268516
The Stream Line Sales Tax Project
http://www.streamlinedsalestax.org/oprules.html
Michigan Tobacco Laws
http://www.michigan.gov/treasury/0,1607,7-121-1750_2143_2153-81431--,00.html
U.S. Constitution Commerce Clause
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commerce_Clause
The New York Daily News
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/local/v-pfriendly/story/270807p-231891c.html
I don't know if he explained this to me right, but that is nonsense.
The states are worse than the Mafia. They claim they want to urge people to stop smoking by raising taxes on cigarettes but fact is they want money. Cigarette taxes is theft. Call it what you like ite outright legalised theft. If they taxed baby food the country would be up in arms. Maryland state has decided to tax my turds. Thats right I have a septic tank , some brilliant person decided that folks with City water and sewer were taxed on it, but rural folks were gettin away , so they decided to add a 4 cents per gallon fee on pumping out a septic tank. pretty soon they will tax my well and I dont doubt for a minute they will soon find a way to tax the air I breathe.
The Bigger question is.. How does the state know this.
One thing I don't get - how does Michigan know that someone bought cigarettes online from Kentucky?
It is very simple. Someone from the state treasury's office conducts a Google search for online cigarette sales. Gets a list of vendors and then contacts each vendor asking for their sales records of who they sold cigarettes to in the state of Michigan. The online vendors I checked used to say they did not report to tax authorities. However, many I have visited recently no long say they will not report if asked and now have a disclaimer that states "Buyer is responsible for all applicable taxes on merchandise sold". It is no longer a secret sale.
Whatever happened to LIFE, LIBERTY, AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS?
Next thing the states will come up with is a happiness quotient of some kind and figure out a tax for that.
Sorry no rebates for depression.
Once they get their money it NEVER comes back.
Like the interest free loan to the government in the form of witholding.
Shouldn't they pay interest on the money they have collected all year when it isn't due until April 15th?
Ronald Reagan chimes in: "Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidise it."
But the venders are not in MI. How to enforce MI state law in another state.
REAL ID BILL PASSES (Sensenbrenner's illegal alien bill passes, will be attached to Iraq bill)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1340612/posts
NYC:New York Hits Online Sellers of Cigarettes
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1341931/posts
McDonald's to pay $8.5 million in trans fat lawsuit (Here we go)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1341733/posts
States Mull Taxing Drivers By Mile
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1343737/posts
Not to far off?
Ordering a pizza
http://www.aclu.org/pizza/images/screen.swf
Are there any Indian Reservations in Michigan where a person could go and purchase their cigarettes in person, for cash?
I live in Illinois but travel to Missouri often anyway and drive about 200 miles to the Missouri border where cigarettes are about $14.00 per carton cheaper.
When our idiot dem governor gets his newst cig tax proposal passed it will be about $22.00 per carton cheaper to get them there.
(a) Contents
Any person who sells or transfers for profit cigarettes in interstate commerce, whereby such cigarettes are shipped into a State taxing the sale or use of cigarettes, to other than a distributor licensed by or located in such State, or who advertises or offers cigarettes for such a sale or transfer and shipment, shall—
(1) first file with the tobacco tax administrator of the State into which such shipment is made or in which such advertisement or offer is disseminated a statement setting forth his name and trade name (if any), and the address of his principal place of business and of any other place of business; and
(2) not later than the 10th day of each calendar month, file with the tobacco tax administrator of the State into which such shipment is made, a memorandum or a copy of the invoice covering each and every shipment of cigarettes made during the previous calendar month into such State; the memorandum or invoice in each case to include the name and address of the person to whom the shipment was made, the brand, and the quantity thereof.(b) Presumptive evidence
(1) that such cigarettes were sold, or transferred for profit, by such person, and
(2) that such sale or transfer was to other than a distributor licensed by or located in such State.
It was said on the TV-5 news that the law that says vendors have to report sales to states is a federal law. Thatis all I know about it.
The Soaring Eagle Casino is on the Chippewa Indian Reservation and is less than 10 miles from my house. I used to go there and purchase cheaper cigarettes. However, they have since made a deal with the state or locals??. If you are not a tribe member with a card to prove it, you pay the same price there as anywhere else in town. So, that doesn't work for me.
If I smoked cigarettes, I'd roll my own.
There is no excuse, none, nada, for the states to impose such taxes on smokers.
If I smoked, I would do the same. But, it is not possible to ask the wife to do the same.
If you want a glimpse of what America would be like under Hillary, look at Michigan.
Gov. Granola is a flaming communist with Hillary ambitions and views.
Michigan has the nation's highest unemployment.
Young people are leaving by the thousands.
The commie governor tried to pass a state land use plan that read like soviet socialism.
Businesses are packing and leaving.
The people she's appointed to key positions are Marxists who hate free enterprise and individual liberties.
She's paying off crooked politicians in the big cities who elected her with tax money stolen from suburban and exurban regions.
If people with lung cancer want to sue somebody, they should sue the states. They are profiting more than anybody on cigarette sales, including the tobacco companies.
If people with lung cancer are too stupid to read the warning on the side of the pack , they shouldnt be allowed to sue anyone.
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