Marlboro cigarettes store
Five years ago, when state coffers were overflowing, we would probably
not have seen this kind of forceful action taken in an effort to collect
sales taxes. But now the economy is sputtering, states face huge budget
deficits, and state officials are scrambling to find every penny they
can.Unfortunately, though, shops like the one that was raided are only
a drop in the bucket compared with the real cigarette tax bleeding marlboro
cigarettes online businesses: Internet cigarette retailers.
The falling economy and higher state cigarette taxes are driving more
and more people to the Internet to buy "tax-free" cigarettes.
The vast majority of Internet cigarette retailers operate in the Northeast
and sell all over the country, affecting not only Rhode Island's state
revenue but also the revenue of every other state in marlboro cigarettes
online which they sell.Of course, cigarettes aren't supposed
to be tax-free, but thanks to a federal tax-enforcement loophole, hundreds
of millions of packs of cigarettes are sold every year and the buyers
never pay a cent in sales tax.
Internet cigarette retailers alone could, by 2005, annually cost Rhode
Island over $40 million in state and local taxes. By 2005, all states
combined could lose nearly $4 billion a year in tax revenue.There is
a decades-old federal law on the books called the Jenkins Act, which
requires sellers in one state to report a sale they make to a resident
of another state to the purchaser's state tax regulatory administration.
The problem with the Jenkins Act is that it does not let an attorney
general in one state sue a company in another state for failure to follow
that law. As a result, marlboro cigarettes online states are powerless
against Internet cigarette retailers, who openly flaunt that they violate
the law. A General Accounting Office study revealed that of the 147
cigarette-selling Internet sites they investigated, none of them --
zero -- complied with the Jenkins Act. In fact, nearly all of them used
this as a marlboro cigarettes online selling point.
The study also showed that many of the Internet cigarette sellers are
owned by Indian tribes, which claim that their sovereign status shields
them from complying with the law.
This year, Internet cigarette sales are expected to account for 2 percent
of the cigarette sales in the country. That translates into more than
413 million packs sold over the Internet. Some economists believe that
by 2005 Internet sales will have grown marlboro cigarettes online to
14 percent of the total cigarettes sold in the United States -- meaning
an astonishing 2.8 billion packs sold over the Internet, tax-free, of
course.The companies that marlboro cigarettes online were examined by
the General Accounting Office also have dismal records when it comes
to age verification, relying on two favorite techniques to "verify"
that the cigarette purchaser is at least 18. Either they state on their
site that the purchaser must be 18 to buy cigarettes or they ask the
purchaser to "verify" by clicking a box that he or she is
at least 18. That would be like a convenience-store clerk taking a buyer's
word that he or she is 18, instead of actually checking the ID.New England
convenience-store operators work very hard to ensure that state cigarette
taxes are collected, and that minors are not able to waltz into their
corner store and buy a pack. Our association helps to educate and train
our members marlboro cigarettes online about their responsibilities
in following the law.Now we are supporting legislation in Congress that
would close the loophole allowing Internet cigarette sellers to flout
the law. The Youth Smoking Prevention and State Revenue Enforcement
Act would give state attorneys general the ability marlboro
cigarettes online to go after these Internet retailers for
sales taxes they owe, and would explicitly not exempt Indian tribes
from the act's reach. Would this force Internet cigarette retailers
out of business? Only those that find it too much of a burden to comply
with the laws that brick-and-mortar stores follow every day.