Collect cigarette tax to limit abuse, but without impinging on sovereignty
Jump to full article: Buffalo (NY) News, 2008-05-02
Intro: But that isn’t stopping New York Congressman Peter King from trying to draw attention to the problem of cigarette smuggling by tying it to international terrorism.
It’s a reach. But the downstate Republican has a point or two to make. The best one is that New York State ought to get around the never-ending standoff over collecting taxes on tobacco products sold on Indian reservations by taxing the smokes before they ever see tribal land. . . .
There are cases where people have been convicted of smuggling cigarettes in New York and the feds concluded that at least some of the money they had been making found its way into the hands of Islamist terrorist groups such as Hezbollah or al-Qaida. Still, waiving the bloody shirt of Islamist terrorism as inspiration for settling a long-standing tax dispute is risky. . . .
King’s suggestion that the state levy its tax take from the cigarette wholesalers, thus skirting the issue of impinging on tribal sovereignty, is one that appeared in this space years ago and still makes sense.
But not, please, in the name of fighting terror.
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