As New York Indian Nation leaders battle in courtrooms to preserve their tax-free cigarette market, tensions are rising on reservations, where the state’s renewed efforts to tax sales to non-Native customers is viewed as yet another attack on Native American rights. “For 200 years, we have been dealing with efforts to take our land, efforts to take our resources, efforts to take our jurisdiction,” said Robert Odawi Porter, seni ... Jump to full article >>

Oneida Indian Nation C.O.O. Peter Carmen says the Oneida Indian Nation will produce and sell more of their own brands of cigarettes and not pay for name brand cigarettes that carry a state sales tax. According to Carmen, the Oneida Indian Nation moved its cigarette manufacturing facility out of Western, N.Y. and to the City of Oneida, N.Y. in the former bingo hall of Territory Road. The goal is to be up and running by mid September, Carmen said ... Jump to full article >>

A hefty state tobacco tax hike appears to have led to a huge drop in demand for cigarettes. But those who waged the war over the tobacco tax say it may be too early to draw conclusions about the long-term effects of the new tax. There is no way to track actual cigarette sales, but orders for the tax stamps that have to be attached to every pack sold in the state fell dramatically in July. Since July 1, when the state cigarette tax jumped from 6 ... Jump to full article >>

Albany – The first six weeks of meteoric cigarette tax rates in New York showed a plunge in sales at convenience stores statewide, mainly because most smokers are finding ways to dodge the tax altogether, reports the New York Association of Convenience Stores On July 1, Governor Paterson and the Legislature increased the cigarette excise tax from $2.75 a pack to $4.35, the highest state tax rate in the country. Just as NYACS predicted, the ... Jump to full article >>

TWO people have been detained for allegedly selling counterfeit trademarked cigarettes, Shanghai police said this morning. Pudong New Area police said that the suspects, one surnamed Wang and the other surnamed Pei, brought wholesale cigarettes from Shenzhen Special Economic Zone and Fujian Province. They repacked them as Chonghwa cigarettes, a popular upmarket brand, and sold them to grocery stores and street peddlers. Pudong police said that t ... Jump to full article >>

Seven businesses were raided Wednesday morning after a nearly four-month investigation into illegal tobacco sales in Hampton. Police simultaneously served search warrants on the businesses at 9 a.m. They confiscated 4,390 packs of cigarettes from the businesses worth $21,950, according to Lt. Jim Crotts of the Hampton police department. In May of 2009 agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives began conducting smoking op ... Jump to full article >>

San Francisco’s first-in-the-nation ban on tobacco sales in drugstores appears to be unconstitutional because it exempts supermarkets and big-box stores that have pharmacies, a state appeals court said Tuesday. But the First District Court of Appeal left open the possibility that the legal defect could be cured by extending the tobacco ban to all stores that sell prescription drugs, rather than repealing it. The court referred that questio ... Jump to full article >>

Two of the three Democrats who want to be South Carolina’s next governor would use tax increases to help ease a looming budget crisis. The third says the fix is simple: Simply allow video poker to return and tax it. State Sen. Robert Ford says he wants to fix the budget with gambling. State Education Superintendent Jim Rex and state Sen. Vincent Sheheen say the state should consider tax increases such as raising the sales tax cap on cars. ... Jump to full article >>

Area stores unhappy with tax-free sales of cigarettes by the Oneida Indian Nation have found a powerful ally — one of the world’s largest tobacco companies. “The state loses revenue. Retailers lose sales. Their employees could even lose jobs. And it adds to the burden on hard-working taxpayers,” reads a recent full-page advertisement paid for by Altria Client Services on behalf of Philip Morris USA. The ad was published in variou ... Jump to full article >>

Canada’s convenience stores are in a perilous position as rising sales taxes expand the lure of contraband cigarettes, which could force the closing of thousands of additional convenience stores across Canada, the industry’s association said Tuesday. More than 2,300 neighbourhood stores closed down last year, pushed in large part by falling sales of legal tobacco. Illegal tobacco sales continued to cost stores more than $2.5-billion ... Jump to full article >>