Better not shop around: online cigarette sales.INTERNET RETAILING threatens to cut into the profits of the shady characters who make a nice living trucking cigarettes from low-tax to high-tax states. But cigarette smugglers, who in recent years have included terrorists as well as ordinary criminals, have found an unlikely ally: New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of Attorney General Eliot Spitzer Eliot Laurence Spitzer (born June 10 1959 ) is an American lawyer, politician and the current Governor of New York. Spitzer was elected governor in the November 2006 election. . Spitzer is determined to eliminate online cigarette sales, banned by a New York law that took effect in 2003, because they reduce revenue from the state's $1.50-a-pack cigarette tax, one of the highest in the nation. New York City New York City: see New York, city. New York City City (pop., 2000: 8,008,278), southeastern New York, at the mouth of the Hudson River. The largest city in the U.S. adds its own tax of the same amount, pushing prices for premium brands above $7 a pack. The upshot is that New Yorkers who buy cigarettes online, from dealers located on Indian reservations or in other states, can save more than 40 percent a carton. Last March Spitzer announced that he had successfully pressured credit card companies to stop processing sales for online tobacconists, and in October he unveiled an agreement in which United Parcel Service United Parcel Service, Inc. (NYSE: UPS), commonly referred to as UPS, is the world's largest package delivery company, delivering more than 15 million packages[1] a day to 6.1 million customers in over 200 countries and territories around the world. avoided criminal charges by promising not to deliver cigarettes to individuals. DHL DHL abbr. 1. Doctor of Hebrew Letters 2. Doctor of Hebrew Literature had already gone smoke-free, and Federal Express was expected to follow. But as Spitzer noted with chagrin, the U.S. Postal Service The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) processes and delivers mail to individuals and businesses within the United States. The service seeks to improve its performance through the development of efficient mail-handling systems and operates its own planning and engineering programs. refuses to get with the program, so discount cigarette sellers still have a way to deliver their goods. Vendors also have found alternative methods of processing payments, including electronic checks and credit card arrangements with foreign banks. Augmenting Spitzer's supply-side approach, the New York City Finance Department has sent intimidating letters to thousands of online cigarette buyers whose names and addresses it obtained through a court order. Declaring that New Yorkers are liable for state and city excise taxes excise taxes, governmental levies on specific goods produced and consumed inside a country. They differ from tariffs, which usually apply only to foreign-made goods, and from sales taxes, which typically apply to all commodities other than those specifically exempted. no matter where they buy cigarettes, the letters demand hundreds or thousands of dollars in back taxes and threaten fines of $500 per carton. In response to the crackdown, some online cigarette stores have gone out of business, and some have stopped shipping to New York. Others seem defiant. Discount-cigarettes-store. com brags, "We do not report any information about our consumers to any authorities." |
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