Court Rules OK On Tax Siezures Without Charges Filed

[Twoller]

From that link:

....

The federal government has cracked down in recent years on contraband cigarettes - smokes sold by people and businesses through illegitimate channels to avoid paying local, state and federal taxes. The Department of Justice, the ATF's parent agency, estimates that federal, state and local governments lose out on $5 billion annually in tax revenue from cigarettes sold through illegitimate channels.

Black's [special ATF agent] affidavit and plea agreements of three other people in Mississippi lay out what investigators describe as a multi-state scheme to sell cigarettes over the Internet, while avoiding millions in state and federal taxes. Black wrote that Chavez shipped untaxed cigarettes to New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Montana and Indiana.

Charles Wells, the owner of H&W Wholesale in Hopkinsville, told federal investigators he sold $14 million in tobacco products to Chavez, but falsified the invoiced to make it appear the sales were being done through Piedmont Wholesale Inc., a North Carolina company, to avoid paying Kentucky taxes. Piedmont Wholesalers had no knowledge of the deal or that its name was being used.

Wells pleaded guilty in federal court in Mississippi in May to fraud, trafficking in contraband cigarettes and money laundering. He has not been sentenced. Two other men, Jerry Burke of Tupelo, Miss., and Mitchell Sivina of Doral, Fla., have also pleaded guilty to taking part in a cigarette trafficking plot.

If you want to sell cigarettes, you have to pay a tax. I think you also need a license. Or maybe that's just alcohol.

I have no sympathy for people who systematically scam the government and then whine about what the government does in response. This fool would not have been in business if he had been paying his cigarette tax. We can assume that he was paying his income tax.