The news that a Dewitt, NY cigarette shop is being sued by the state caught my eye because the store is close to where I live. The store allows customers to roll their own smokes using a machine and avoid the high taxes on cigarettes from the manufacturers. What struck me was the statement by the New York Attorney General.
“Rather than playing by the rules, this store and others like it are cheating the state out of millions of dollars per year in legitimate tax revenue and endangering public health and safety while they’re doing it,” Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said in a statement. “The illegally low prices this business is charging for their store-made machine-rolled cigarettes have been shown time and again to encourage people to take up smoking and to discourage smokers from quitting.”
Spoken like a true statist.
Update: Linked by Frugal Cafe – thanks!
Show creativity in helping your customers save money and pay less in taxes, and watch the socialists go nuts! The socialist think, THAT IS OUR MONEY THAT STORE OWNER IS THEATING US OUT OF. No thought to the fact that the money belongs to the individual. And if the tax codes allowed it by not having it on the books, then it wasn’t cheating and that was one smart store owner!
I’m not a smoker nor condone it, but this is still the land of the free and if this shop owner is pandering to his customer base, then power to him.
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Can someone please track down this store owner and appoint him to secretary of Energy so that he can lower gas prices for us. Obama has said time and time agian that he can’t do it. I will bet you the store owner can do it in ten minutes.
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Mark is exactly right. Smoking isn’t bad enough for the progressives to ban the sale of cigarettes or tobacco paraphernalia, no; it’s always about money and control. They just want to confiscate a piece of the action then it’s magically ok.
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i suppose we can grow tobacco. Can somebody please tell these little totalitarians back to where they came from. And while they are at it – take Morris Dees of the SPLC along with them. And if he raises his ugly face, go check out his Divorce proceedings and read them aloud.
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What the AG wants is the revenues that are earmarked for future lung cancer treatment costs!
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Eric Schneiderman, joined at the hip with Al Sharpton:
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/editorials/eric_the_insider_dClmXiBTzWjKUrOfaqgF8L
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[...] that their out-of-control spending, unprecedented economic manipulation, rising taxes, fees, and mandates against small businesses, crushing debt, and long-term deficit spending are somehow good for the nation’s economy, [...]
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