Posted on 02/04/2007 4:51:40 PM PST by Malacoda
BRICK, N.J. -- New Jersey residents who buy their cigarettes over the Internet are experiencing a big reason to quit: huge sales tax bills.
The state is cracking down on residents who buy their smokes online in order to avoid state sales tax, a development that has caught many Garden State smokers by surprise.
Brick resident Craig Mathews, 57, quit smoking last April, but not before racking up a $10,426.11 sales tax bill for buying cigarettes over the Web for years.
Another Brick resident, Tim Nolan, 52, received a sales tax bill from the state for $4,115.28 for the Pall Mall cigarettes he purchased online from July 2003 to March 2005.
Both men said they bought the cigarettes over the Internet in order to save money and didn't know that they had to pay sales tax to the state of New Jersey.
"We should have gotten a warning," Nolan told the Asbury Park Press for Sunday's newspapers. "We were ignorant of the law."
A professor at Rutgers School of Law, Mark Weiner, said under a federal law called the Jenkins Act, tobacco companies who sell their products to out-of-state consumers must report sales information to the state where the consumer lives.
According to Tom Vincz, a spokesman for the state Treasury Department, the state collects about $4 million a year from sales tax on out-of-state cigarettes.
Vincz said sometimes cigarette sellers will voluntarily offer the information to states, but often the states must demand it from the Internet sites.
Ping.
Why is only the tobacco industry subject to these reporting laws? What's next?
Offshore companies don't have to report anything.
"We were ignorant of the law."
Were you also igorant of the fact that ignorance of the law is no excuse? C'mon. Quit it.
One word.
LIBERALS.
I DO think that they deserved a warning, though. Eleven thousand dollars is a lot to come up with on short notice, and the Demokratik republik of Gnu Jerksey is sort of notorious for this crap.
Why do you have to report that you bought cigarettes in the first place?
Government and business are the only ones that are "entitled" to cross state lines for the cheapest rate. The rest of us have the tax bill to pay and make up for lost taxes while the states continue to send more and more services out of state or country to be performed for the cheapest wage.
YOU don't report it ---- Internet & Credit Card companys get subpoenas.
They do to Customs.
Out of state purchases of anything.....Depends on how hard up your state is for money and what they are willing to do to get your taxes
Watch the big time internet sales giants such as L.L.Bean, Cabela's, etc. start getting inquiries from the states such as Michigan for their sales records then start going after the customers. Myself, I was nailed for for tobacco taxes last year and when those bastards get you in their sights, you are guilty even if you can prove your innocence......
You don't but you are responsible to pay the applicable sales tax via your State tax form at the end of the year. The Jenkins Act facilitates each State's collection of taxes on cigarettes by requiring the seller to report to the State Agency the name and address of individuals who purchased from a given state.
And another Nanny State Insanity PING....
Did these people never get the idea if they LOWERED the tax people would seek to make purchases elsewhere????
That's almost 4 packs a day. He won't need to be embalmed.
New York and Michigan did the same thing. A congress critter from Wisconsin I believe pointed out the Jenkins Act and states are jumping on the band wagon. What ticks me off about this is the states farm out work to the cheapest wage which reduces revenue and then they spend taxpayer money penalizing these same citizens who try to get the cheapest rate.
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