How the PACT Act is Driving Our Local Cigar Shops Out of Business

The PACT act is supposed to stop internet trafficking of tobacco, but cigars were left out. Altidis is a large tobacco company who is taking advantage of a loop-hole that is driving local shops in California out of business.

The local shops still have to pay the excise tax and collect sales taxes because they have a physical location, but JR Cigars is an internet only sales, or no shops in California at least, so they get to sell cigars without excise tax, and without collecting sales tax...but wait, JR Cigars was bought by Altidis for $87,000,000. in 2005, and Altidis does have a physical presense in California, but because they only own JR Cigars, they are protected from the excise tax requirement and collecting sales taxes.

This is not fair, and we should write our congressmen to ask that cigars be included in the PACT act, or else we are saying that unfair tax advantages for big companies is okay.

Please remember that the Boston Tea Party was an act of vandalism against a multi-national corporation, the East India Trading Company, because they were getting an unfair tax advantage from the Queen which was driving all the people who wanted to sell tea here out of business.

$50 million in taxes is not being collected also.

so basiclly you want me to try and get yet another buisness closed or made illegal.what do the people who work for these companies think?why didnt you do somthing about this when you had the chance,you could have lobbied against the whatever side your on,to me it seems like your on the dea side of opinion.i dont like cigars big tabco or industry but the last thing im doing is joining your made up crusde to make anohter product or buisness and sll that will be fected by it illegal just so as you seem to put it to be fair to all of the rest of us and i mean me not you.i dont know you and like i said as far as im concerned you are the dea and want to put me in jail or prison becuse why,well,thanks for asking.i personally grow smoke marijuana as a sb420 prvider for myself and i make medicianl devices out of borosilicate glass to specificcaly make my medicine witch i illegal to do,now everthing i do is illegal and regulated to be only dealt with by industry.as you know the feds ,dea ,fda have stopped all sales of electronic ciggaretts ,ya know the things that are in all the links and adds on this page and website,yea those ilegal items acording to the dea and fda,so also even longer ilegal has been all pipes with a carb,bongs ,bong slides,water pipes,bubblers,slides,only if made in america by an american,you can still import all the slave stuff you want,matter of fact you can buy that cheap slave stuff here on our forum in the sales room is mostly if not all forign non handmade glass ,or in usa,and whats called drug parephenalia,if any one by chance not you but say me,an american glassblower that makes pipes,trys to sell any of my items anywere,etsy, google, paypal,facebook, i am cosidered illegal.now tabbaco is in fact has nicotine a deadly drug,any legal pipes are only for leagally smoking tabbaco only,in fact all tabacco pipes are drug devices that are drug parephenalia since it is proven that nictine is a drug?all other smoking material including marijuana is not a drug and in fact is a medicine so who why were would someone willingly make a tabbaco pipe?why would people do that unless they were trying to kill people.it is a proven fact tabacco kills people every year.i have been in the glass borosilicate color changing pipe seller blower for over 20 years since the 1980s.i can proudly say i have never,and never wwill sell a pipe for tabaco use,only a sell out or a bad person would do that.even if the person smoked to promote smoking tabaco is like any drug pusher exept once again the obvious tatistics that show not that many people die from illegal drugs but tens of thouands die every yeqar from tabacco and ,for the record,more people died from legal pharmicuticals than all the deaths from cocain and heroin.i wish i knew more about htis pact act instead of brittish history and india cost of tea.as i pointed out it is actually effecting me,who or why you care for some reason you dindt feel it necesary to mention,oh well i guess i had to mke the conversation last,your point died a long time ago,al this site and like minded buisness are bieng effected by this federal invasion of the internet ,homeland security,look up the digital copyrite millinium act,dmca fro google and googles disclaimer called "THE CHILLING EFFECT" yea times are good.well good luck taking down a buisnes,i recomend telling the dea kids are rolling ther marijuanawith the cigares,that is why all cigar pappers ar also gone off the shelves,haa.e-cigarrretts are 99% ilegal

Gnosy:

I don't want to sound like a school teacher here, but your posts would be a lot easier to read if you'd use 'enter' every now and then and capitals and a space when a new sentence starts.

Thanks.

Gnosy -- it might also help to choose one topic to explicate per post, or at least endeavor to stay on topic.

Internet/Catalogue sales have long been awarded tax breaks for out of state customers. This is not new. Should we make efforts to tax LL Bean too?

It's all relative

they're specifically only supposed to get the tax break if they don't have a physical place of business in the state, not shelter big companies who do have a physical presense who buy those internet places.

JR Cigars sells more cigars to Californians than all of the local cigar shops in California combined. They are owned by Altiris, bought in 2005 for 875 million. They can sell a box of cigars for $130 that the local guy sells for $200, so where are you gonna buy? That guy's had a shop for thirty years. His only crime is selling tobacco, but he's at a serious disadvantage, put there by the government. Who by the way is losing 50 million dollars a year.

i for one would like to be able to go to a Local shop to buy swedish snus, even if it's seven bucks instead of 4 (plus shipping), and it could be as simple as writing a letter to your congressman asking that cigars be added to the PACT Act.

gnosy said:

so basiclly you want me to try and get yet another buisness closed or made illegal.

Click to expand...

No, just stop giving an un-fair tax advantage to a big tobacco distributor which is driving our local shops out of business.

I know tobacco isn't popular, it causes death, but there is a safe way to enjoy it (swedish snus), and I want that to remain available locally.

Are you seriously suggesting that we petition our lawmakers to request increasing the number of needless substance control laws? On a marijuana-related website? Absurd.

i'm not being understood at all here...there's a law that was passed to stop people from getting around paying state taxes on tobacco (by going through indian reserves and what not) - it's supposed to stop internet trafficing of tobacco...it's already in effect, it's the reason we can't send tobacco through the US postal service anymore.

But they left out cigars, and it's killing the local shops...so I'm trying to see if I can get anyone to show some love for the local cigar shop-keepers by sending a letter asking cigars to be added to the list they should have been put on in the first place. the only company benefitting from them being left off of the list is a company who is shielded by shell ownership of an internet business, it's unfair for the local businesses even if you never plan to buy a cigar (I don't).


these local cigar shops are now the local smoke/glass shop, so it's not a stretch to pose the question here.

if i can get away with my political rants here, this is valid, this is our government giving an unfair tax advantage to one business while driving existing local based businesses out of business, so that's why I draw a comparison to the Boston Tea Party, because as much as I HAD been taught that the Boston Tea Party was about taxation without representation, it was actually an act of vandalism as a demonstration against the evil "Corporation" back then that was being given an unfair tax advantage which was driving our local tea businesses out of business.

"this is our government giving an unfair tax advantage to one business while driving existing local based businesses out of business"

That is not fact, but opinion. It should be stated as such, or else others will not think very much of your "political rants" (a euphemism for opinions?).

VWFringe said:

i'm not being understood at all here...there's a law that was passed to stop people from getting around paying state taxes on tobacco (by going through indian reserves and what not) - it's supposed to stop internet trafficing of tobacco...it's already in effect, it's the reason we can't send tobacco through the US postal service anymore.

But they left out cigars, and it's killing the local shops...so I'm trying to see if I can get anyone to show some love for the local cigar shop-keepers by sending a letter asking cigars to be added to the list they should have been put on in the first place. the only company benefitting from them being left off of the list is a company who is shielded by shell ownership of an internet business, it's unfair for the local businesses even if you never plan to buy a cigar (I don't).


these local cigar shops are now the local smoke/glass shop, so it's not a stretch to pose the question here.

if i can get away with my political rants here, this is valid, this is our government giving an unfair tax advantage to one business while driving existing local based businesses out of business, so that's why I draw a comparison to the Boston Tea Party, because as much as I HAD been taught that the Boston Tea Party was about taxation without representation, it was actually an act of vandalism as a demonstration against the evil "Corporation" back then that was being given an unfair tax advantage which was driving our local tea businesses out of business.

Click to expand...

It's unfair to the internet business that it's illegal to sell cigarettes online. It's unfair that the government excises an exorbitant tax on unpopular but lucrative activities.

businesses with no physical nexus are exempt from collecting tobacco excise and sales taxes, for cigars, and can sell and ship tobacco products, but just can't use the post office, they have to use UPS or something else - they have to collect tobacco excise tax and state sales taxes for all other products than rolling tobacco and cigars.


they found a loop hole, if they buy a company who only does internet business, or only has shops back east, they don't have to collect the excise tax or state sales tax for cigars, so they bought a company that specializes in cigars. But they do have a presense in California, and a big one, they are a major distributor of tobacco products here.


the state could be raking in 50 million dollars if that company had to collect the excise and sales tax.
the cigar shop owner who told me all of this also explained that he has to take all of the risk, having to put up with possible robberies during the entire time he's in business, as an unpaid tax collector for the State, while this other business has what he "believes" is an unfair advantage. He said he has customers come in all the time who would like to buy a box of cigars, but they can't because his prices are so much higher than the online place.


So, I thought this was a cause we could get behind, sorry I so mis-judged it. (I'll keep plugging away on other stuff)



do you think it's an unfair tax advantage?

you know i don't even like the guy who owns the shop, and will probably never go there again because he sold me snus that was out of date and didn't return my call when i left a voice mail bitching about it, but just on principal, come on, this get absolutely no love here?

your uncle owns a bong shop, and uncle sam says he has to pay a 30% excise tax on every bong he sells, plus collect 7 1/2% sales tax, but the government also says his supplier, a local but big business, can buy an online place to take advantage of a loop hole, and sell everything for 40% less than your uncle.

is that an unfair tax advantage? is it just an opinion, or is it just being faithfull to the science?
\
to me it's not leftist, it's not socialist, it's not even extreme, it's two plus two, and anyone who agrees can probably help close this loop-hole and save hundreds of local businesses, which I think are mom and pop, not corporate shops, from winking out of business in California.

when the Queen of England said that everyone in America had to pay a hefty tax on any tea they had imported, and then exempted her own shipping company from that tax, it drove hundreds of Americans out of business, and as an act of revolt against that corporate favoritism, we had the Boston Tea Party.

what's the difference between that situation and us sending an email for this one? it's a lot closer to the intent of the Boston Tea Party than the people who've marched recently for the Koch brothers.