Higher tobacco taxes encourage smuggling

The Washington Times ^ | 7/14/2002 | David Crary, ASSOCIATED PRESS

[xsysmgr]

NEW YORK

[xsysmgr]

...the states aren't going to get the revenues they're projecting and will find themselves with increasingly hard-to-enforce legal problems.

Surprise, surprise.

[Pharmboy]

But the stakes for tobacky smuggling have been raised in NYC since 9-11; cops are looking at trucks very carefully at the bridges and tunnels coming into Manhattan.

[steve50]

They're starting the rant about "smuggling" already, get ready for some serious DEA type actions to prevent it.
I can get them air freighted in from Switzerland for $15 a carton delivered or roll my own for $8. They're going to have to end that to keep their cash cow producing.

[GailA]

As Rush will say I told you so. Greece's solution will be coming to the US in the next few years.

http://www.greekembassy.org/press/newsflash/2002/May/nflash0531.html

NEWS FLASH ! Greece joins the West in anti-smoking measures Athens, 31/05/2002 (ANA)

Greece will follow the example set by the United States and many European countries in enacting a series of nine measures against smoking and for the protection of non-smokers, Health Minister Alekos Papadopoulos said on Thursday.

Announcing the measures at a press conference one day before the international day against smoking, he said that measures will carry penalties of up to three months imprisonment and steep cash fines.

The measures include the total ban on cigarette advertising, beginning from Jan. 1st, which includes a ban on commercials in movie theaters as well, while restaurants and coffee shops will have to create non-smoking sections.

The non-smoking section system will not apply to bars and nightclubs that are open only during the evening and late night hours and it will not apply to the traditional type of Greek coffeehouses.

The minister stressed that the new measures include provisions for the strict enforcement of the cigarette smoking ban in enclosed public areas where people have to stay for long periods of time, such as bus stations, railway stations, airports etc., although the establishment of smoking areas in those places is mandated.

He added that the smoking ban in hospitals, clinics and in all places providing healthcare services will be strictly enforced, as it will be in public transport systems, including taxis.

The education ministry, in cooperation with the health ministry, will undertake a campaign to inform students of the dangers of smoking, aiming to create smoke free schools, while the measures include a mandate banning smoking in school grounds, with the parallel establishment of smoking spaces for teachers who smoke.

Also, the measures include the initiation of a health ministry campaign aiming to alert smokers on the dangers of smoking and to make them more sensitive to those who do not smoke.

The minister stressed that for the success of the measures the ministry's efforts include the upgrading of outpatient clinics of hospitals that aid smokers to reject the habit, while the ministry, along with the National Radio and Television Council, will work toward stopping indirect tobacco advertising in every radio and television broadcast.

During the presentation of the measures, Papadopoulos said the enforcement of the measures in the public service sector will be the responsibility of the managers and supervisors of each service.

The minister underlined that the measures aim at protecting citizens whether they smoke or not, to alleviate the cost of smoking for the healthcare system of the country and to avert the creation of a new generation of smokers.

Athens News Agency

[goldstategop]

It'll be worse than Prohibition. The lifestyle nazis never seem to learn. Just look for organized crime to muscle in and look at several billion dollars worth of illicit tobacco move through the black market. And unless the government wants to throw every one in jail for lighting up, the war's already lost. I don't expect taxes to be repealed by I do think they'll be rolled back to a level where it makes more sense to pay them than to figure out how to get away with not paying them.

[zandtar]

>>Anti-smoking advocates call it a win-win situation, enabling states to reduce smoking and budget deficits simultaneously.<<

A pretty sad state of affairs when we just finished celebrating the independence of America, and we've got people stating more taxes is a good thing, when taxes are at their highest. The idiocy of America is astounding at times.

[metesky]

Different titles, but already posted here and here.

Then again, these things should be kept out front for people to see.

[Jaidyn]

The states just made criminals of millions Americans. That won't bother them because there is money to be made prosecuting smokers. Tobacco corporations no longer control their products, the state does.

[Caipirabob]

Too bad these tax-nazi's have decided on a course of action which demands resistence from citizens. Tyrannical tax schemes only helpt to perpetuate the black market. You'd think the liberal elite would have learned from history but most of them are yet too ignorant to associate relationship between Socialism and the Nazi movement of the 30's and 40's (The scary aspect of the current movement is that while it doesn't include the fascist nationalistic tendacies of the Nazi movement, it is definately an Anti-God, Anti-American, Anti-nation movement in favor of displacing national sovereignty with a generic global NWO scheme which will be ruled by radical leftists.)

Should we label them Glob-Zis or Nwo-zis?

At any rate it's a conflict where only the innocent will suffer, the criminal elements will profit and prosper along with government imposed tyranny.

I know we're supposed to feel bad for New York, 9/11 and all, but it's really hard to associate any sense of pity for these socialist butt-pirates in the city when they go out of their way to mess things up like this.

[Texas Jack]

— expected to generate $2.2 billion annually in new revenue — as budget woes and anti-smoking militancy transform cigarette buyers into America's easiest-to-tax constituency.

Of course, the taxing agencies will never realize this revenue. Once an item is taxed to the point of creating a "black market" the additional resources required to police tax collection eats up a substantial amount of projected revenues, if not all of them. I suspect we will see a drop in tobacco tax revenues and a lingering behemoth of a bureaucracy that we will regret having created for years to come.

[oldironsides]

Pennsylvania just boosted the taxes on cigarettes.
People are passing the word about the indian business
up near the Canadian border that sell tobacco and internet sales from southern states and overseas. I do not smoke but it appears to me that before long there will be a way around the politicians and the taxation on addictions.
I watch the people buy alcohol from neighboring states because the state of Pennsylvania has a monopoly on liquor sales. Nobody else but the state can supply liquor. They charge high prices and taxes and keep Pa. residents
running for the borders for better prices. I do not know anyone that buys liquor in Pennsylvania. The cigarettes sales will
suffer the same fate. The little teenage cigarette Nazi's are
already out and working the stores. They buy cigarettes and get the store busted. That is their summer fun. It is true that tobacco should not be bought by minors. Is it a good thing to teach teens to get shop owners arrested or fined? I am not so sure.

[steve50]

If it's like any other black market it's just a matter of time before the DEA/ATF is running it.
When they asked John Gotti Jr. at his trial if the mob was involved in drug smuggling he said " No, we can't compete with the government"

[Principled]

Golly! Government pressure on free markets actually does create incentive for crime?

Well, we can just start a War on Tobacco and spend ever and ever more on this war. Soon, we'll be up to $2.3 billion per year and then the problems will end! /sarcasm

End the ineffective prohibition policies!

[Jaidyn]

Ohio is the same way. They dress these kids up to look like they are thirty. It is teaching kids to be informants on their friends and family, that government is supreme. They are taught not to think for themselves, that the government is willing and able to do their thinking for them. Right now, liberals take refuge in the government but all Americans soon will be seeking refuge from the government because of the obscene abuses that tend to magnify themselves with every passing nonsense law.

[InvisibleChurch]

enabling states to reduce smoking and budget deficits simultaneously.

who ARE these people?

[SheLion]

Only on my second cup of coffee. Still catching up here! :)

[TomGuy]

Boston Tea Party
Tobacco Butt Party [butt some of those elected officials into retirement]
It's coming soon.
It's not just about cigarettes. If every smoker ceased today, tomorrow they'd be going after cola, or fries, or the burger, or beer, or gasoline. It's all about taxes, revenues, money.

[Wolfie]

Hey, they've got 60-odd years worth of Drug War apparatus already in place to handle this sort of thing. No-knock raids, warrantless searches, asset seizures (at least on state has laws in place to confiscate your car if you caught bringing in non-taxed cigarettes). How much you wanna bet that right now, someone somwhere is training dogs to sniff for tobacco?

[steve50]

No doubt they're training dogs as we type. At the rate we're going in 5 years transporting a cheeseburger across state lines will be a felony.

[STONEWALLS]

......I bought 5 cartons while on vacation in NC for $23.00 a pop.....this was at the supermarket......at home they go for $42.00/ carton......you don't have to be PhD economist to see to see to profit potential in smokes.....
Stonewalls