I saw this on another site.

http://www.katu.com/news/ap_story_main.asp?URL=http://localhost/apwirefeed/d88t1ad01.xml&NewsSection=BreakingNewsHeadlines 

How will it affect cbid?

Will it affect us, the purchasers or will cbid do something to counter this?

Inquiring minds, you know.

One must read between the lines here. It's not just about taxes. We know taxes are collected by governments, local and state.

Sales of CIGARETTES are taxed on a state level. Most people purchase products online with a credit card. This is what the taxing authorities are depending on.

Call it the major credit card's gift back to the government for deregulating the credit card business.

I think only cigarettes are affected. I may be incorrect in my assumption, but if cigars are part of this, C-bid may at some point elect to accept PayPal, or some other form of instant payment. My PayPal account is directly linked to my bank account and I can deposit funds with a mouse click. Therefore I don't have to use the credit card.

I don't see why the sellers just don't charge the appropriate tax for the state they're located in. That would solve the problem. Too bad for the states that don't have cigarette web sites.

This whole mess is just another revenue grab for the states. Far be it for us to get a break once in a while. What next? Excise tax on breath mints sold on cigar sites?

The "sin" tax for all tobacco products in WA state is 129%. My point? OUCH!!!!

Its our wonderfull money hungry goverment at work for us. Any way they can steal a buck from us they will. I wonder if the bank cards that the banks issue would be the same as a regular credit card because they do have either the visa or master card on them?

I am sorry I meant debit cards from our bank.

from the site

"Government officials say states lose more than one (B)billion dollars a year in tax revenue from Internet tobacco sales."

they neglected to mention how much money they suck out of every transaction they can tax. the fda has declared cigarettes neither a drug nor a food item allowing the industry to get away with anything includig hyping up the nicotine levels and aiming the product at the new addicts to be, children, with out any controls placed on them.

one of the reasons marijuana is illegal is because the cigarette industry has so much power and marijuana is not as addictive as cigarettes, not to mention the clothing industry that does not want hemp available to manufacture clothes.

nic·o·tine (n¹k“…-t¶n”) n. A colorless, poisonous alkaloid, C10H14N2, derived from the tobacco plant and used as an insecticide. It is the substance in tobacco to which smokers can become addicted.

Can I buy Pot online? It's too damn expensive here in Japan. If it wasn't for my brother and his care packages, I'd be broke.

Where are you Pablo? I need your help!

This is unequivocally cigarette-specific. Not cigars. The gray area is that some credit card processors may not interpret it correctly. Or some dealers might run into trouble if they sell cigarettes in their brick & mortar, but cigars only by mail-order - they are likely to be pegged as a cigarette dealer. However in our case we sell no cigarettes of any kind in any manner.

Cigarette sales online over state lines in particular is and has been illegal under the Jenkins Act of 1949. So to me this tightening the screws on online cigarette dealers is not unwelcome if done right. Yes, it's an absolute disgrace that government is so addicted to cigarette tax revenue. But hear me out: right now there is much attention on the issue, and that's because states claim to be losing tax revenue from online cigarette sales. After all, cigarettes account for 98% of the tobacco taxes, while cigars, pipes and other forms of tobacco are literally miniscule. And cigarettes have always been illegal to ship anyway, not so with cigars. If states are able to recover these lost cigarette taxes, it will likely reduce attention, which may lead to fewer legislative efforts to solve the problem. The fewer legislative efforts there are the lower the probability that cigars could become collateral damage in a carelessly worded federal bill somewhere. So it might help move the issue off the table....another one will of course pop up in its place but we fight another day.

We use Paypal on our web site. We have it set up so that when you make a purchase and you live in PA, where we are located, it automatically charges the PA sales tax. We file and pay our taxes accordingly. I can't imagine how we would manage if we had to charge taxes for other states. It would be a logistical nightmare to have to try to keep track of it and then to file--and we are a small company. I can't imagine how bigger companies could deal with it.

Thanks Keith for the info. I am glad to hear that cigars are excluded from this. When we started out, we inquired about it because we get orders from all over the world. The manufacturer of our cigars did warn us about certain states though and recommended that we do not put "cigar" on our labels--just in case.

Although this is a cigarette issue right now, I am sure at some point they will go after cigars too. Even though it is a small percentage, the government doesn't seem to have enough to do so they keep finding things that they can go after.

BikerBob1961--my debit card also has a VISA logo even though it is strictly debit only. I don't know how that would work in this case. I think they could still track it.

Herfsnipe--Paypal still lists the sale on a credit card so I would think they could track it that way too.

Lauren

My local showed me a letter he recieved today (from his bank) that stated he could not accept credit card transactions for ANY tobacco or tobacco products. Cigarettes, cigars, pipe tobacco, and possibly even pipes and accessories may be included.

I read the letter myself folks.

John L

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