The states have been going after internet cigarette buyers to colect unpaid taxes
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Smokers feeling unexpected burn from state Internet tax demands
Mar 07, 2005 (Chicago Tribune - Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News via COMTEX) -- The one-page greeting from the Michigan Department of Treasury came out of the mailbox, but to Julia Sidebottom it may as well have come from the moon. Tucked amid the legalese was the line that said her boyfriend owed the state $4,797.87 in unpaid cigarette taxes.
"I was totally flabbergasted," Sidebottom said. "At first you don't know what to think. . . . I thought it was some kind of a joke."
Michigan, Illinois and other states are giving smokers who buy cigarettes over the Internet a lot to think about, in the form of letters notifying them that they owe thousands of dollars in taxes on bargain-priced smokes. More than 530 Michigan residents received tax bills in the past two weeks, with the average individual liability being $3,200.
In Illinois, about 1,300 people who bought cigarettes over the Internet are about to be notified that they must pay the state's 98-cent-per-pack tax, an Illinois Department of Revenue spokeswoman said.
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