...the tax seal has not been broken.
Few people realized they were committing a Federal offense by opening a pack this way.
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.
Exactly, Ron! And they don't have any convenient way to read through them, either. They're been trying to order laws by USC for decades now. At the EARLIEST a new law is actually published for the public TWO YEARS after it is passed. To date, only 24 areas of the fifty they whittled it down to are actually published in any manner.
It simply boggles the mind!
United States Code
From earliest times, various attempts have been made to collect and publish the laws -- not chronologically as they were passed, but according to subject matter.
Revised Statutes
Some of these efforts were undertaken privately by commercial publishers, and others were authorized by Congress, including the Revised Statutes of 1878 (18 Stat. 1, et seq.) and the Revised Statutes of 1925 (44 Stat. 1, et seq.).
United States Code
The first edition of the United States Code (U.S.C.) was published in 1926. A new edition is now published every six years, arranged in fifty subject titles, with cumulative annual Supplements published during the intervening years. Publication of each edition and each annual Supplement routinely occurs some two years after its cover date.
The U.S.C. does not contain all laws, but is limited to "a consolidation and codification of all the general and permanent laws of the United States," (emphasis added) as determined by the Office of the Law Revision Counsel of the House of Representatives. (U.S.C., 2000 ed., page vii.)
Revisions of the U.S.C.
Today, the Law Revision Counsel continues a tedious practice started in 1939 to revise the U.S.C., title by title, correcting errors and inconsistencies in preparation for "enactment into positive law," making such titles "legal evidence" of the laws. As of March 1, 2006, 24 of the 50 titles have been revised:
1. General Provisions
3. The President
4. Flag and Seal, Seat of Government, and the States
5. Government Organization and Employees
9. Arbitration
10. Armed Forces
11. Bankruptcy
13. Census
14. Coast Guard
17. Copyrights
18. Crimes and Criminal Procedure
23. Highways
28. Judiciary and Judicial Procedure
31. Money and Finance
32. National Guard
35. Patents
36. Patriotic and National Observances, Ceremonies and Organizations
37. Pay and Allowances of the Uniformed Services
38. Veterans' Benefits
39. Postal Service
40. Public Buildings, Property, and Works
44. Public Printing and Documents
46. Shipping
49. Transportation
Thus, there are 26 titles not yet revised, meaning that "the matter contained in the other titles of the Code is prima facie [not 'legal'] evidence of the laws." These other titles are:
2. The Congress
6. Domestic Security
7. Agriculture
8. Aliens and Nationality
12. Banks and Banking
15. Commerce and Trade
16. Conservation
19. Customs Duties
20. Education
21. Food and Drugs
22. Foreign Relations and Intercourse
24. Hospitals and Asylums
25. Indians
26. Internal Revenue Code
27. Intoxicating Liquors
29. Labor
30. Mineral Lands and Mining
33. Navigation and Navigable Waters
34. Navy. [Repealed]
41. Public Contracts
42. The Public Health and Welfare
43. Public Lands
45. Railroads
47. Telegraphs, Telephones, and Radiotelegraphs
48. Territories and Insular Possessions
50. War and National Defense
The Law Revision Counsel requires several years of effort to revise each title, meaning that this project may not be completed until well into the 21st century. In the meantime, there is understandable interest in protecting the accuracy of the corrected titles that have been revised to date. This explains in part why certain Bills in Congress (later to become Acts) would amend the U.S.C., while others would amend an existing Act.
More here: http://www.answers.com/topic/united-states-code
Diana,
Thank you so much for the information. It is quite informative as well as vdry frightening.
The next time someone says that ignorance of the law is no excuse, I will point them to this.
BTW, just where is the law that says "ignorance of the law is no excuse?"
...the tax seal has not been broken.
Few people realized they were committing a Federal offense by opening a pack this way.
Christopher Buckley's satirical gift shines in this hilarious look at the ironies of "personal freedom" and the unbearable smugness of political correctness. Bracing in its cynicism, Thank You for Smoking is a delightful meander off the beaten path of mainstream American ethics. And despite his hypertension-inducing, slander-splattered, morally bankrupt behavior--which leads one Larry King listener to describe him as "lower than whale crap"--you'll find yourself rooting for smoking's mass enabler. --Rebekah Warren
Absolutely. It's a well-established and respected American tradition. These states have jacked up the taxes on cigarettes so much that it practically demands that people do everything in their power to avoid them.
You said:
If you're looking to avoid paying exorbitant taxes on your cigarettes, your best course of action would be to buy your cigarettes at an Indian reservation or take a long trip down to Kentucky or North Carolina once a year to stock up on several hundred cartons.
then:
The sax they owe will have to be paid -- since these purchases have already been recorded.
So how would someone save?
Bottom line is, they are required to pay New Jersey the tax, regardless of where they got the merchandise. Same thing if you buy a car and take it across state lines. Same thing when New Jersey and Pennsylvania had a fight about people crossing the state line to buy alcohol. Same thing for Delaware having no sales tax and people in Pennsylvania going there to shop. In each case, the home state claims that you are supposed to pay them, as I understand it.
Am I misunderstanding?
I thnk anything over 399 packs must be reported under the Jenkins act.
In the future, however, they could avoid this tax by purchasing cigarettes from outside New Jersey and paying cash for these purchases -- thereby making it far more difficult (if not impossible) for the state to obtain any kind of record of the transactions.
So if I rent a U-Haul, drive down to North Carolina, and buy 300 packs of cigarettes from 100 different retailers, are you telling me I can come back to New Jersey with 30,000 packs of untaxed cigarettes?
Not untaxed, but taxed at the NC rate. Which is like a dime a pack. The muzzies were doing this for years and shipping vans full to Michigan until they got caught.
Right -- that's what I should have said. A dime a pack is basically 0 compared to NJ taxes. LOL.
You can break into a house when nobody's home and take stuff. You can sneak something out of a store without paying. You can collect and sell mineral specimens from National Parks.
...but that doesn't mean it's legal.
Rather than suggesting ways to break laws (i.e., evade taxes), how about we fight to get ridiculous laws overturned?
Anyone who can figure out a way to avoid paying taxes -- legally or "illegally," whatever the heck that means anymore -- should have a medal pinned on him.
Despite what you might think, one does not OWE anything to an extortionist. And I am ALL in favor of someone buying where they can avoid the taxman. And then I would tell the taxman where he could put his bill. Simple. Theft and extortion are wring and vile no matter WHO does them and under what pretext.
How about we do what our Founders did: Tar and feather more than a few tax collectors and legislators and be done with it? Ignoring tax laws and shooting tax collectors are the original American traditions. Who are you to say we should sheepishly obey such vile and evil laws? Do you work for the IRS or BATFags?
Because that's generally (actually, almost always) the way it happens.
Aaron Eckhart in the film Thank You for Smoking,
the wittiest flick of 2005, IMHO.
________________________________________________
The movie sucked. Read Buckleys' book if you haven't already.
The left wing Hollyweird whitewash did away with a lot of the satirical portrayal of the Health Nazis as loons.
PS: Trivia question that is not really based in fact but on the public opinion. Let's see if we are thinking the same thing:
Name me one movie that was as good as the book?
Name me one movie that was better than the book?
My understanding is, and I am not a smoker and have never purchased at a rez, that you can pay cash and walk out. NO WA state tax is taken because they do not pay WA state any takes off Rez sales. That is my understanding. WA state has one of the strongest and widest NO smoking in clubs and restaurants in the country. But, you can smoke in any Rez casino or restaurant.
__________________________________________________________
So far, unless that pit bull Elliot Spitzer happens to be your AG, anybody can buy smokes from Native Americans. They are not technically subject to the Jenkins Act as a sovereign nation.
But white men like Spitzer and Bloomberg have ass raped the Native Americans for 500 years. Why would this be different? I don't know, time will tell.
Like I've said before, if the folks on the religion threads are right, and there is indeed a just and merciful God, than the Native Americans will get rich off the crop they originally cultivated....while the greedy Big Tobacco companies and their partners in crime in the States that are addicted to MSA and tobacco excise money...become really poor.
I agree with you that the movie was scrubbed but still preferred it over rivals such as "Little Miss Sunshine" and "The Devil Wears Prada," the winner of the Golden Globes Award for Best Motion Picture -- Musical or Comedy. Of course, "Thank You For Smoking" was still too witty for the Academy, even in the Adapted Screenplay category.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.