[Eddie H]

Originally Posted by cooljay788 At least with a smoke shop that doesn't report orders, you never have to worry about paying back taxes on the cartons. But of course, if that bill passes later on this year, then NONE of the smoke shops will be able to deliver cigs again, whether they're Jenkins Act-compliant or not.

Who can say what any particular smoke shop that claims to not report orders will do when faced with the ATF kicking down their doors, confiscating their inventory and throwing the owners in prison? I haven't heard of that happening at any Native owned online shops. One online smoke shop that we're familiar with did disclose orders after they met the government's extortion machine. That shop is offline now. Hopefully, they won't be coming back.

It seems to me that the bill making tobacco deliveries illegal would be talked about more often by smokers. Why don't smokers contact their politicians and tell them to say NO to it? It seems like smokers are just giving up and letting a few politicians and anti's walk all over them. Smokers need to sign all the petitions, send letters and emails to politicians and get all their smoking friends onboard to try and stop it. We're all being rounded up for the slaughter house by these few politicians and antis. FSCs w/o testing first, FDA control now, the new high taxes and now this bill coming to make tobacco deliveries illegal are all hitting us smokers hard and it appears to me that smokers are letting it happen.

[Sally]

Apparently there must be a misunderstand on the true meaning of bootlegging cigarettes.

Let’s first start with the Indian smoke shops are NOT exempt from federal laws. Some Indian nations have signed contracts with the US government that state: They may buy and sell products without any state on them and sell to their OWN people living on the reservation and no state taxes will be demanded from them. It says nothing about not paying federal taxes for if that was true this new federal excise tax would not have applied to the Indians.

For years now many people on and off the reservation are under the understanding that those Indian nations that have these contracts with the government can sell online tobacco products without charging sales tax, federal excise tax or state tax. That is completely untrue.

Those Indian nations that are in contracts with the government are sovereign from State Laws to their own people living on their reservation. They are not exempt from any Federal Laws. The contract are very clear that they may buy and sell any products without taxes on them but can only sell them to their own Indian people inside the bounders of their own land. When it comes to anyone that is not an Indian they must charge tax and report that tax to the state revenues department.

These nations that have contracts that sell online tobacco products must follow all the state and federal laws just like everyone else does. This is why there are so many law suits against the non and Indian online tobacco stores and why the states are jumping up and down that they are not getting their state taxes.

The Jenkins Act is a Federal Law that was created 50 years before online tobacco ever came into existence. It was made to keep records on wholesalers that stamp cigarettes and sell to retail stores in the same state or going across state lines. The reason that Indian and Non Indian online tobacco shops have been getting away with this for so long is they all claim the same thing, the Jenkins Act does not apply to online tobacco shops because there is no tax in cyber space, unless the company sales in their own state where the company was licensed. There are some online tobacco shops that comply with the Jenkins Act and many do not. Some online tobacco shops comply with charging the state tax but do not comply with turning the names over to comply with the Jenkins Act.

Bootlegging: in the United States, the illegal distribution or production of liquor and other highly taxed goods. The transport of cigarettes and liquor that the tax has not been paid on is called bootlegging. So in other words when this guy in KY drives to SC and buys from a wholesaler not in his own state and then drives them across state lines it is called bootlegging plain and simple.

[Sally]

The point about bootlegging is it does not matter if the cigarettes are stamped or not. It is the transport of cigarettes across the state lines and then sold in another state from were they were bought.

The Indian smoke shop in New Mexico was just shut down by the ATF for doing just that. So it does not matter if they are Native American Smoke Shops either.

The Indian smoke shops do not have to follow state laws. They are required to follow all federal laws including the Jenkins Act no matter how much they argue the point.

Too many people confuse the many different issues when dealing with cigarettes.

1. Most which is mainly in New York Indian smoke shops have been fighting for years that they do not have to comply with the white man laws but their contracts with the government say different. They can buy untaxed products and sell to Native American Indians that live on the reservation, not to non-natives living on or off the reservations. That is one point of this huge war.
2. Second all states want their state tax for with many they are losing this state tax if people buy online whether or not they are stamped cigarettes or not, they are not stamped with the state stamp for that particular state they are being shipped to.
3. Third you got people like the guy in Kentucky that is going to South Carolina buying unstamped and stamped cigarettes and transporting them across state lines and selling them in another state to people all over the United States again not paying the tax on them.

What it all narrows down to is bootlegging cigarettes no matter how you wish to paint the picture.

What really bothers me about the whole situation is we are all free people, we should be able to buy cigarettes from any state as long as they have a Native American stamp on them or any other state stamp on them either by mail order or by driving to a place and buy them. It should not be the business of the government, state or ATF where we wish to buy our legal cigarette tobacco from. If North Carolina has cheaper cigarettes and I wish to buy from them then that is my business the same if I wish to buy my cigarettes from Indian in New York. Plain and Simple.