Posted on 06/25/2006 8:10:40 PM PDT by SheLion
The state moved to expand its pursuit of tax dollars from smokers who buy cigarettes over the Internet.
The Department of Revenue — at a cost of $88,000 — sent tax bills late last year to 7,500 smokers who bought cigarettes online without paying Oregon’s tax of $1.18 a pack. Roughly 33 percent of the people who received letters paid their taxes, generating $686,000.
On Thursday, a subcommittee of the Legislative Emergency Board gave preliminary approval to the Department of Revenue to spend another $240,000 to send letters to people listed on another 23,000 invoices.
The full Emergency Board, which doles out money when the full Legislature is not in session, is expected to approve the spending.
State Sen. Frank Morse, R-Albany, noting that an 8-to-1 return is enticing, asked agency officials if even more could be invested in such efforts.
“Are there any additional taxes that could be collected that we are not?” he asked.
There could be. The state is receiving copies of about 1,400 invoices a month from several online dealers, the Department of Revenue said.
Internet cigarette sellers offer cheaper rates in part because they do not collect state taxes. Under legal pressure, they began turning over customer data to states a year ago. A federal law prohibits retailers from delivering tobacco products across state lines without reporting their sales.
Elizabeth Harchenko, the director of the revenue agency, said it’s impossible to say whether the next group of invoices will yield a similar amount of taxes. While only a third of people responded to the first letters, nobody has the option of not paying, she said.
Those who get a letter and do not pay go into the state’s catalog of people who are delinquent on taxes, and will face fines, penalties and interest.
Cigarette taxes in Oregon add up to about $235 million a year, with about half of the money helping to pay for subsidized health care. The money also goes to smoking cessation efforts, cities and counties, and to the state general fund.
The state estimates 500,000 Oregonians are smokers, and that 3 percent of them are buying their cigarettes over the Internet.
JaJ, you are wasting your breath.
Ray is part of the extortion network...the more complicated the system the more money he and his colleagues stand to make from the average Joe who feels intimidated by all the tax codes.
Anyone that does not consider sales, use, and excise taxes to be regressive is not just part of the system, but part of the problem and will NEVER be part of the solution.
I still can't figure out if there are collection methods set up for these tobacco taxes.
If there is no method set up to collect them, then how are people being back billed for them?
You have a legitimate question.......but it seems as one with no answer.
If there is no means of paying, because there is no means of collection, how can there be a bill? It's a typical bureaucratic fuster cluck circular situation.
"Why? so they can be better tax cheats?"
I have often thought a good college course would be "tax-evasion 101"
You could be the professor.
"wait till they get hit up for online purchases like eBay and Amoazon, etc."
That's right. I'll bet they'll be squalling then.
Tax cheats are patriots, Ray.
Starve the beast and all that.
"Yes. And it really confuses 'me' as to what being a Conservative is really supposed to mean"
Lioness, you and I aren't confused. They are.
They are what I like to call libservatives.
Yes. Paying taxes to support the necessary and authorized functions of government is patriotic.
Paying taxes to fund social engineering and wealth and income redistribution schemes is not.
And they say it's not about the money......
Yeah. Right.
Spotting and Dumping the Criminal Mind
"...Consider Dostoevsky's analysis of the criminal mind in his masterwork `Crime and Punishment': The criminal assumption is that one has the right and authority to take or confiscate values earned by others so long as someone else has a need for those values."
The Criminal Mind is a mode of thinking that lays the responsibility for taking care of oneself onto others. A person with a criminal mind constantly projects that others owe him something -- be it money, a job, happiness, love, or anything else of value.
Instead of focussing on earning values, the criminal mind conjures up rationalizations as to why one deserves values belonging to others. Earn is replaced with deserve. The responsibility to provide that deserved value is then automatically placed on someone else.
The criminal mind functions through destructive rationalizations that subvert the ability to produce competitive values. A person in a criminal-mind mode stops exerting the honesty, effort, and integrations required to effectively deal with problems and build competitive values.
While criminal-mind thinking festers at the core of all criminals, such thinking is also used by others for camouflaged manipulation. A person can employ criminal-mind thinking without actually being a criminal.
http://www.neo-tech.com/global/appendix3.html
"when you are an Outlaw, your heart and mind (unlike most everybody else’s) are your own." - Claire Wolfe
So, what you're telling me is that our government is criminal?
Ray, I didn't think you had it in you.
And you agree with this?????????
Apparently you do, or you would not be arguing in favor of confiscatory tax schemes.........
Most of my shopping is done over the Internet now. Not cigarettes. Have not ordered cigarettes. But a lot of other things.
I have my taxes done at H&R Block. NOT ONCE in the past THREE YEARS has he ask me about if I bought over the Internet. Not once!!!
In my state the law is broken out for cigarettes and tobacco. Raycpa's links he posted shows that too.
Regardless, there isn't an entry or method that I can see for paying these taxes other than the line item mentioned in our posts back and forth.
And customer service. The way they treat the customer means everything to me. If their customer service stinks (i.e. turning in customer lists), then I will kick them to the curb.
I know for a FACT that the Maine Governor cannot balance the state budget without the smokers tax dollars.
So what does that tell you?!
25-30% of Maine people smoke. 25-30% of the Maine people are carrying the weight of the state budget on their shoulders and this is NOT right!
One or the other is criminal. I guess it depends on which one has the bigger gun.
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