AWMA Supports Legislation to Promote Restrictions on Remote Sales of Cigarettes
AWMA is making enactment of federal legislation combating the illegal sales of cigarettes through the Internet a top priority in this 110th Congress.
Remote sellers – those who sell cigarettes thru mail order or over the Internet – regularly violate state and local laws imposing taxes on cigarettes.
As states continue to raise their excise taxes, smokers are increasingly turning to remote sellers for these illegal tax-free cigarettes. These remote sellers have an unfair competitive advantage and federal legislation is necessary to level the playing field.
States have lost over $1 billion a year in unpaid cigarette excise taxes and many of these products end up in the hands of underage smokers because of the lack of age verification standards inherent in these kinds of sales.
The Senate introduced legislation last Congress – S.3810, (Sen. Herb Kohl D-WI) entitled the Prevent All Cigarette Trafficking Act – that would have strengthened the Jenkins Act by increasing reporting requirements on the remote sales (Internet, mail order) of cigarettes.
These bills would have given the states the authority to collect millions of dollars in lost state tax revenue resulting from online and other remote sales of cigarettes & smokeless tobacco.
The goal of these bills is to ensure that the tax burdens are equal for all retailers of cigarettes and smokeless tobacco, to protect underage smokers and to ensure the states receive the monies they are due from cigarette excise taxes.
AWMA supports the introduction of similar measures in this new Congress to address the problem of Internet and mail order cigarette sales that avoid collecting taxes.
