Posted on 07/31/2002 7:51:30 PM PDT by RCW2001
Internet Smoke Shops Lure Tax-Averse Cigarette Buyers
By HARLAN SPECTOR
c.2002 Newhouse News Service
As state after cash-strapped state slaps hefty tax increases on cigarettes, smokers are flocking to Internet sites where they can buy tax-free.
Hundreds of Internet smoke shops have come online in recent years, offering a vast selection of premium and discount brands and the enticement of tax-free smoking.
Anti-tobacco activists complain that Internet vendors are unregulated, making it easy for kids to buy online.
Meanwhile, some states are looking for ways to collect the excise taxes cigarette smokers are dodging. Massachusetts and other states have sought customer names from Internet vendors, but they have little leverage to force the issue.
The Ohio Department of Taxation asks a handful of out-of-state vendors for customer lists every year.
"We haven't had very good response," says department spokesman Gary Gudmundson.
"None of these (vendors) report," says Gary Kirschner, chief executive of eSmokes.com. Kirschner says his Internet smoke shop now has 450 competitors online, compared with 30 when his company started in 1999.
"Eighty percent are Indian reservations," he says. "They never report anything to anybody." Sales of cigarettes on Indian reservations are exempt from state and local taxes by law.
Demand is greatest from high-tax states like New York and New Jersey, which levy the nation's highest smoking tax -- $1.50 per pack.
Kirschner says eSmokes also is seeing a jump in customers from Pennsylvania, which raised its tax to $1 a pack on July 15.
New York tried to outlaw Internet and mail-order cigarette sales, but a federal judge struck down the provision last year.
Rep. Martin Meehan, D-Mass., is drafting legislation in Congress to prohibit Internet sales to minors and require that cyberstores be licensed in every state in which they do business.
Age verification at dirtcheapcig.com is typical of Web vendors: "Click here to enter only if your (sic) are 18 or older".
Dr. Rob Crane, a Columbus, Ohio, family physician and anti-smoking activist, says Internet sales threaten efforts to reduce smoking rates with higher taxes.
"It ought to be illegal to sell across state borders," says Crane, who is also part of a campaign to raise the smoking age to 21.
The 55-cent-per-pack tax in his state, where adult and teen smoking rates are among the highest in the nation, may not be enough to drive large numbers of smokers to Internet vendors. Shipping charges keep Internet prices in the ballpark with brick-and-mortar retailers.
Tobacco dealers dispute evidence that higher taxes discourage smoking. They say the tax burden only shifts dependence to low-cost brands and out-of-state vendors.
"It's not people giving up the habit," says Joshua Sanders of the Ohio Council of Retail Merchants.
"They're just going somewhere else."
(Harlan Spector is a reporter for The Plain Dealer of Cleveland. He can be contacted at hspector@plaind.com.)
LOL! Or without being able to speak English.
Remember to freep this legislation if it comes to a vote! I'm sooooo sick of our government telling us to wear seat belts, not to smoke etc. Is this communism or what?? I'm also enjoying those cyber cigs!! Makes me feel good to outsmart this state & their damn tax increases!
But you can bet your bottom dollar they will leverage tax laws through under guise of anti-tobacco legislation for ALL internet sales eventually. Frcking "liberals" are all about 'choice' as long as it's their choice.
The sad and honest truth, the biggest anti-smoking movement prior to ours was Nazi Germany, so I don't expect any of them should be offended when we call them Nazis.
Depends on location.
A pack contains twenty cigarettes. A carton is ten packs. Smokes purchased by the carton are cheaper per cigarette than packs purchased individually.
In Colorado (which has "average" prices nationwide), a pack of premium-brand cigarettes go for around $3.75/pack. Cartons can be around $30 --sometimes less if stores have them on sale. (Premium brands are the non-generic, "popular" brands like Marlboros, Camels, Winstons, Salems, Benson & Hedges, etc...) Generic or "discount" brands like Basics and Dorals can go for under $3 per pack. Many cigarette manufactures run promotions like "buy two packs get one free" to try and compete.
I almost always buy whatever brand is on sale or part of a promotion.
New York City is currently making headlines as having the highest price for smokes-- $7+ per pack. In Ohio, it is a felony to posess more than $60 worth of smokes that do not contain an Ohio tax stamp (cartons run for $40 in Ohio but people have been fleeing to Kentucky where they are just over $20).
Hope this helps.
That's where I purchase mine... Camel 100s for around 16-17 dollars (depending on shipping). They're fast too.
I've ordered from them several times and never had any problems. I usually get them in less than one week.
Just what part of free trade between states so specifically addressed in the Constitution does this assh*le not understand?
Nam Vet
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