Posted on 10/25/2005 6:59:09 AM PDT by SheLion
ALBANY, N.Y. - The world's largest shipping carrier, UPS Inc., will stop delivering cigarettes to individuals in the United States under an agreement announced Monday with state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer.
The agreement is the latest in federal and state efforts to combat the sale of under-taxed cigarette and to fight underage smoking. Most under-taxed or untaxed cigarettes are sold by Indian tribes, where the taxation of sales to non-Indians is disputed.
Monday's agreement leaves only the U.S. Postal Service among major carriers to continue to deliver cigarettes to individuals, Spitzer said. He called that practice "an embarrassment." Spitzer continues to negotiate with Federal Express, but they are thought to handle a small amount of the trade, said Spitzer spokesman Marc Violette.
Despite a new policy adopted by the Postal Service in September to refuse delivery of illegal products, the federal service allows employees to accept packages suspected of containing under-taxed cigarettes, Spitzer said.
"Internet cigarette traffickers are increasingly using the federal mail system to distribute their wares," Spitzer said. He said the Postal Service "clearly" has the authority to refuse to deliver cigarettes to individual smokers. "It is an embarrassment that major private companies have stopped carrying contraband cigarettes, but the federal government continues to accept them," said Spitzer, a Democrat running for governor. "Congress needs to step in and stop this practice immediately."
The Postal Service can't stop delivery even if it suspects a package clearly marked as coming from a retailer contains untaxed cigarettes, said Postal Service spokesman Gerry McKiernan.
"There could be souvenirs in the package. We don't know because we can't see inside the package," he said.
Instead, the Postal Service will watch for packages if advised by law enforcement agencies. They also will alert law enforcement agencies when the service is shipping those packages, he said.
"It's up to law enforcement agencies to enforce the law," McKiernan said.
He said private companies have contracts with firms that regularly use their services which identifies materials being shipped. The Postal Service doesn't.
"As far as I'm concerned, it's illegal," said Audrey Silk of New York City Citizens Lobbying Against Smoker Harassment and a Libertarian Party candidate for New York City mayor. "They are exploiting children ... when you employ `for the children' you can get the public to do anything."
Earlier this year, DHL banned cigarette deliveries to individuals nationwide and the nation's largest credit card companies stopped processing payments for cigarette sales.
Spitzer said Internet and mail-order cigarette retailers violate federal, state and local laws governing taxes and underage smoking. Sales to minors also violate federal wire fraud and mail fraud laws, he said.
The agreement with Spitzer matches a nationwide policy at UPS aimed at avoiding the difficulty of complying with a "patchwork" of different state laws enacted in 28 states since 2003, said Steve Holmes, spokesman for the global company based in Atlanta. He said he had no estimate of how much business would be lost.
"Regardless of that issue, we believe it's a prudent business decision and we want to do what's right, of course, by the laws, but we want to do right by our customers and we want to do right by our communities as well," he said.
Violations of the UPS policy would eventually result in suspension of service, according to the agreement.
States lose more than $1 billion a year in tax revenue from Internet tobacco sales, according to the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Enforcement, however, has been difficult, even though in many states, including New York, the Internet sale of tobacco products is illegal.
Never happen -- the states would lose too much revenue.
Isn't "under-taxes cigarettes" an oxymoron?
I'm also confused. I don't know the full scope of the agreement that UPS will be adhering to. As for that proposed legislation in Congress, it's been sitting in some committee since June. Maybe it will die a happy death there.
We do know that politicians are royally ticked that money they believe is theirs is not reaching their coffers. Too bad, eh! ;^)
They can "believe" all they want - but that money is MINE until such time as I choose to part with it in the form of sales/excise taxes on purchases I make.
True enough, but that wouldn't justify the expenditure of huge amounts of money to get the equipment necessary to do the job of looking at the innards of every package.
You're assuming that they actually care about tobacco taxes and are actually looking for tobacco.
If,by chance,Spitzer is in his fifties it's not difficult to imagine a picture of him taken in '69 showing him in a tie dyed T shirt and sporting an unkempt,insect infested beard....just like The Most Ethical President In History.
Pay up smokers or quit, its your choice after all.
Afraid to order off of the Internet?
Then start rolling your own!!! I find everything but the machine downtown at the local Smoke Shop.
If the Post office ever goes down the same road as UPS and DHL...thats my next step.
BTW...for all you anti-smoking nazis out there applauding and breaking out the bubbly...this whole situation will be the eventual vehicle that ends tax-free purchases on the internet.
You've got that right........but all they can see in their tunnelvision is an stab at smokers and to them anything that does that is GOOD.
Unngh...I need a smoke.
LOL!!!!
FEX-X! There you go! More business for them!
Well, then more business can be given to FED X!!
That's just it. People aren't looking at the whole picture in the long run. And the trickle down effect this will have.
From the article:
Spitzer continues to negotiate with Federal Express, but they are thought to handle a small amount of the trade, said Spitzer spokesman Marc Violette.
DHS and UPS have caved. Will FedEx do the same? (The plot thickens.)
How can a guy in New York stop interstate commerce in 49 other states?
I don't understand how that is Constitutional.
When all ways to ship are taken off the table, there will always be "cigarette runners" willing to fill their cars and trucks with cigs and make deliveries.
Gov't agencies have forgotten about prohibition and how it was practically unenforcable.
Bingo! Ding-ding-ding!!
I don't either. Is he the head of all of UPS?
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