Tobacco smuggler spared jail
A SMUGGLER who crammed almost 1,000lbs of hand-rolling tobacco and 28,000 cigarettes into a people-carrier has been spared jail.
Officers from HM Revenue & Customs found the vehicle’s roof-box filled with cigarettes and tobacco was hidden under blankets when Karl Hansen was stopped at Poole Ferry Port, Dorset.
The 47-year-old was given a six-months prison sentence, which was suspended for two years, when he appeared at Bournemouth Crown Court.
The tiler was stopped by customs officers on October 3 last year as he drove a Chrysler Grand Voyager into Dorset after arriving from Cherbourg, France.
Hansen, of Kennedy Gardens, Billingham, pleaded guilty to evading around £71,000 in excise duty.
He was also given a three-month curfew between the hours of 9pm and 7am. The judge also ordered that the vehicle be forfeited under a deprivation order and awarded £250 costs.
The Recorder, Mr Francis Abbott, warned Hansen he would be sent to prison if he did it again.
He said: “If the cigarettes had been allowed through, the Government would be short-changed and the money has to come out of everyone else’s pockets.”
SC lens on airport cigarette sale
The Supreme Court will decide whether international cigarette brands can be sold in duty-free outlets at the departure lounges of Indian airports without the statutory pictorial warnings.
The case centres on claims by a company, DFS India Private Ltd, that the cigarettes being sold in the duty-free outlets of departure lounges are “exports” and, therefore, exempt from the statutory anti-smoking warnings.
DFS moved the apex court after Bombay High Court last month refused to give it relief on its plea challenging the seizure of cigarette stocks by the customs at its outlet in the departure lounge of Mumbai international airport. “These are exports, and exports are exempt from carrying statutory warnings,” DFS counsel Mukul Rohatgi said today.
Rohatgi argued that the packets being sold at its duty-free outlet in the arrival lounge carried the warnings as they would be used in India, but not those being retailed in the departure lounge as they would be used abroad. The cigarette cartons in the departure lounge’s outlet had the warnings, but not individual packs, he said. “These are for use in Spain, Germany and elsewhere, for people flying out of the country.”
However, a three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan rejected the argument saying: “Cigarette smoking is injurious wherever it is done — whether Spain, Germany and elsewhere.” Rohatgi countered by saying “if smoking is injurious, so are salt and sugar”. The apex court refused to grant him any interim relief but asked the customs to place its views.
So far, only one international brand, Phillip Morris, has carried warnings on its packs sold at duty-free shops in departure lounges.
Stomping out the cigarettes-new legislation to curb an old habit
San Francisco legislators have started the conversation again—how do we weigh the public health of our community against the freedom of smokers to do as they please?
Proposing an expansion on the city’s smoking ban, legislators are tackling this question and evoking loud cheers from health professionals. Bars and nightclubs, on the other hand, aren’t so happy.
According to the new legislation, people would be prohibited from smoking at farmer’s markets, movie theater lines, common areas of apartment complexes, and in front of shops, restaurants, office buildings and certain sidewalk spaces (SF Gate). The vote will be held in two weeks—and Supervisor Eric Mar, the chief sponsor of the legislation, has already tackled key components of the legislation to reduce potential opposition.
A decade ago, San Francisco had some of the most extreme anti-smoking laws in the country, but has since done very little to combat the effects of second hand smoke. Now, City Hall is packed with people who are reviving what continues to be a very important dialogue. Dr. Mitch Katz, head of San Francisco’s Department of Public Health, was just one of the many joined together at City Hall to discuss the legislation. “We are not against smokers,” he said, while he urged the community to “protect people from the harms of second hand smoke” (SF Gate). Katz supports the legislation as a step closer to this goal.
It’s time that as a society we join our legislators in reviving this conversation. How can we live together peacefully while respecting one another’s decisions, freedoms, and health?
Make 2010 the year cigarette tax goes up
Lawmakers generally are loath to raise taxes, but increasing the cigarette tax is a hike many South Carolinians would support, and in a tough budget year, the money would be welcome.
Last year, lawmakers came tantalizingly close to raising the tax by 50 cents a pack, up from the shamefully low 7 cents a pack. But they couldn’t agree on how to spend the estimated $147 million it would raise.
They can do it this session if they’ll put their minds to it.
Gov. Mark Sanford’s spokesman indicates that the tax hike might not face the veto hurdle it couldn’t clear in previous years. Federal health care reform could make the difference.
Sanford will oppose the federal bill, Ben Fox told The (Columbia) State newspaper, but “wouldn’t put a blanket prohibition on (using cigarette tax revenue) without seeing how it plays out.”
The governor previously has insisted that a matching tax break come with a cigarette tax hike. Supporters of the hike haven’t been able to generate the two-thirds vote needed to override Sanford’s veto.
The federal bill could add $1 billion to South Carolina’s Medicaid costs in the next decade, officials estimate.
South Carolina spends an estimated $1 billion a year on smoking-related illnesses.
A look at South Carolina’s record on cigarette taxes and programs to stop smoking leads us straight to the bottom. Our tax of 7 cents a pack is the lowest in the country. It hasn’t changed since 1977. The national average now stands at $1.34 a pack.
The Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids reports that the average cigarette tax for major tobacco states (Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee) is 40 cents a pack; for all other states, it is $1.46 a pack. Cigarette taxes in the other tobacco states range from 30 cents in Virginia to 62 cents in Tennessee. We’re doing our part to keep down the average.
And we earned a big fat “F” for our smoking prevention efforts in a new report released last week. According to the American Lung Association, South Carolina is one of six states to score all “F’s” for their efforts on tobacco prevention and control spending, smoke-free air laws and rules, taxing cigarettes and helping smokers kick the habit. The other states with all failing grades were Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky, Virginia and West Virginia.
The South Carolina House version of the bill raising the cigarette tax allocates $5 million a year for smoking prevention and cessation programs. The state spent no money in fiscal year 2009, down from $2 million in fiscal year 2008. Spending $5 million would be a step in the right direction, but it’s still far short of the $62.2 million a year recommended by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That figure was based on the amount of money generated from tobacco sales in South Carolina.
Tobacco lobbyists say it’s bad fiscal policy to rely on a tobacco tax to pay for health care costs. If the tax works to reduce smoking by raising the cost, then revenue from the tax goes down.
But so, too, would the incidence of tobacco-related illnesses. And that should be lawmakers’ first concern.
Wipro ties-up with British American Tobacco
Bangalore: IT major Wipro Technologies has entered into a multi-year outsourcing engagement with British American Tobacco, to help the company improve the effectiveness and efficiency of application support services for its global business operations.
Under the agreement, both companies will partner to leverage Wipro’s global scale and transformational capabilities to achieve step change results in productivity, IT costs and service quality. More specifically, the agreement will provide an enterprise-wide global application support delivery model and capability, reduce the total cost of ownership and allow more opportunities for value added services to business users of British American
Tobacco.
Commenting on the agreement, Ben Fourie, Head of Global IT Services at British American Tobacco, said, “We believe this is the right way forward for us in terms of our IT strategy. These changes will help us improve the application support service quality, facilitate better integration, enable enhanced knowledge sharing and, ultimately, help us become more competitive.”Wipro will be delivering this global program across over 130 countries in which British American Tobacco operates. Bhanu Murthy B.M., Senior Vice President - Retail, CPG, Transportation and Government, Wipro Technologies said, “We are excited to be chosen for this transformational initiative at British American Tobacco. Wipro will bring in standardized processes, methodologies and governance to set British American Tobacco on a strategic cost optimization path while ensuring a high level of service to the business and will participate in bringing in clear business benefits.”
Parkinson proposes sales, cigarette tax increases to start session
Facing a historic budget crisis, Gov. Mark Parkinson on Monday proposed a temporary one-cent increase in the state sales tax and an increase in the state tax on cigarettes of 55 cents per pack.
After cutting nearly $1 billion from a $6 billion budget over the past year, Parkinson said further cuts would do serious damage to Kansas.
“We are now cutting into the bone,” he said during the State of State address to start the 2010 legislative session. “Everything we have built is at risk,” he said.
He said that without additional tax revenue, more cuts would have to be made to schools, social services, universities and prisons.
But Parkinson’s tax proposal got a chilly reception, and quickly drew sharp criticism from Republicans, the Kansas Chamber, and Americans for Prosperity, an anti-tax group.
House Majority Leader Ray Merrick, R-Stilwell, delivered a stinging rebuke. “In a shameful change of course from when he took office last year, the governor has abdicated his duty to the taxpayers of Kansas by refusing to offer a balanced budget and demanding the largest tax increase in Kansas history.”
But Parkinson’s fellow Democrats and even some Republicans were more sympathetic.
State Rep. Tom Sloan, R-Lawrence, said protecting the state’s education system from further cuts is of utmost important. “Our education system is the foundation of all of our past successes and our future prospects,” Sloan said.
He declined to sign on to Parkinson’s proposal, but said more tax revenue is needed, and he praised the governor for putting a plan before the Legislature.
Sloan said Parkinson’s 30-minute speech, which was delivered without a teleprompter or notes, was the most inspiring State of the State address he has heard in his 16 years in the Legislature.
Parkinson reminded legislators of the tough decisions made by generations of Kansans that enabled many to attain the American Dream.
“Our ancestors worked too hard to build what we have. It is our turn to fight and it is a fight worth fighting,” he said.
House Democratic Leader Paul Davis, of Lawrence, said Parkinson laid out the choices facing the Legislature — harmful budget cuts or tax increases. He said a majority hasn’t formed for either position yet. “The Legislature has its work cut out for it,” Davis said.
He said House Republican leadership opposition to any tax increase was unfortunate. With further cuts, nearly every school district in Kansas will have to close some schools, he said.
Under Parkinson’s tax plan, the state sales tax would increase from 5.3 cents per dollar to 6.3 cents per dollar for three years and then fall back to 5.5 cents per dollar, with that extra two-tenths of a cent dedicated to a new highway plan.
He also called on lawmakers to increase the state tax on cigarettes from 79 cents per pack to $1.34 per pack, which is the national average. He said the increase would bring in needed revenue and deter young people from starting to smoke.
Even after five rounds of budget cuts in 2009, the Legislature still faces a $400 million revenue shortfall for the fiscal year that starts July 1.
The proposed sales tax increase would raise $308 million, while the cigarette tax increase would raise $70 million.
Under Parkinson’s plan, public schools would receive some of the funding that has already been cut, raising the base state aid per pupil from $4,012 to $4,062. At one point, the level was around $4,400 per student.
Higher education, which has been cut more than $100 million, would get back $10 million. And a 10 percent cut in Medicaid, ordered by Parkinson in November, would be reversed.
The 10 percent Medicaid cut has become extremely unpopular because it also costs the state tens of millions of dollars in federal matching funds. House Speaker Mike O’Neal, R-Hutchinson, said Republicans are investigating whether there is a way to cut the budget without taking away state dollars that draw matching federal funds.
Make 2010 the year cigarette tax goes up
Lawmakers generally are loath to raise taxes, but increasing the cigarette tax is a hike many South Carolinians would support, and in a tough budget year, the money would be welcome.
Last year, lawmakers came tantalizingly close to raising the tax by 50 cents a pack, up from the shamefully low 7 cents a pack. But they couldn’t agree on how to spend the estimated $147 million it would raise.
They can do it this session if they’ll put their minds to it.
Gov. Mark Sanford’s spokesman indicates that the tax hike might not face the veto hurdle it couldn’t clear in previous years. Federal health care reform could make the difference.
Sanford will oppose the federal bill, Ben Fox told The (Columbia) State newspaper, but “wouldn’t put a blanket prohibition on (using cigarette tax revenue) without seeing how it plays out.”
The governor previously has insisted that a matching tax break come with a cigarette tax hike. Supporters of the hike haven’t been able to generate the two-thirds vote needed to override Sanford’s veto.
The federal bill could add $1 billion to South Carolina’s Medicaid costs in the next decade, officials estimate.
South Carolina spends an estimated $1 billion a year on smoking-related illnesses.
A look at South Carolina’s record on cigarette taxes and programs to stop smoking leads us straight to the bottom. Our tax of 7 cents a pack is the lowest in the country. It hasn’t changed since 1977. The national average now stands at $1.34 a pack.
The Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids reports that the average cigarette tax for major tobacco states (Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee) is 40 cents a pack; for all other states, it is $1.46 a pack. Cigarette taxes in the other tobacco states range from 30 cents in Virginia to 62 cents in Tennessee. We’re doing our part to keep down the average.
And we earned a big fat “F” for our smoking prevention efforts in a new report released last week. According to the American Lung Association, South Carolina is one of six states to score all “F’s” for their efforts on tobacco prevention and control spending, smoke-free air laws and rules, taxing cigarettes and helping smokers kick the habit. The other states with all failing grades were Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky, Virginia and West Virginia.
The South Carolina House version of the bill raising the cigarette tax allocates $5 million a year for smoking prevention and cessation programs. The state spent no money in fiscal year 2009, down from $2 million in fiscal year 2008. Spending $5 million would be a step in the right direction, but it’s still far short of the $62.2 million a year recommended by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That figure was based on the amount of money generated from tobacco sales in South Carolina.
Tobacco lobbyists say it’s bad fiscal policy to rely on a tobacco tax to pay for health care costs. If the tax works to reduce smoking by raising the cost, then revenue from the tax goes down.
But so, too, would the incidence of tobacco-related illnesses. And that should be lawmakers’ first concern.
Idaho Court Rules Against Online Tobacco Seller
The Idaho Supreme Court has rejected an appeal by an online cigarette marketer who claimed his company was immune from state laws regulating tobacco sales.
The unanimous decision issued Friday affirms a lower court ruling in a lawsuit filed by the Idaho Attorney General in 2006 against Scott B.
In the original lawsuit, the state claimed Maybee, a Native American from New York, was violating state laws requiring cigarette peddlers to register with the state and pay a fee to the state. The laws were passed in the wake of the national tobacco settlement in 1998.
Maybee claimed Idaho laws don’t apply because he’s protected by federal interstate and Indian commerce laws.
The justices disagreed and awarded attorney fees and costs to the state.
Burglars bag cigarette haul
AN undisclosed quantity of cigarettes has been stolen from premises at Pennybridge Industrial Estate in Ballymena and detectives in the town are investigating.
The intruders forced open a door in order to gain access to the building around 7.25 pm on Friday, January 8.
Detectives investigating the burglary are eager to hear from anyone who noticed a van entering or leaving the premises around the time, or from anyone offered cigarettes for sale from an unusual source or at an unrealistic price.
Citizens Want to Tax Discount Cigarette Makers
Nearly two out of three likely voters say a Miami-based discount cigarette maker and others should cough up $200 million a year to combat the effects of smoking, according to a business backed poll released on Monday.
Facing a tight budget and competing with better-known brand cigarette makers that have already agreed to pay billions to the state, a poll commissioned by Associated Industries of Florida indicates voters would not be against imposing a fee on Dosal Tobacco Corp. and other discounters that were not part of a landmark 1997 agreement that continues to generate revenue for the state.
Only one in five opposed levying fees, according to the telephone poll of 801 voters conducted by Zogby International in early December. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percent.
“If the whole point of the tobacco settlement was to ensure we as a state could pay the health care costs of future Medicaid recipients, it only makes sense that all cigarette manufacturers help pay for these costs,” AIF President and CEO Barney Bishop said in a statement. “To most Floridians a cigarette is a cigarette.”
Following a lawsuit, four major U.S. cigarette companies including Reynolds and Phillip Morris reached an agreement in 1997 that increased the cost of their products by about 45 cents a pack. The proceeds were meant to offset the public health expenses caused by smoking related illnesses.
But Dosal, a family owned brand run by Cuban exiles that comprised about 1 percent of the market in the early 1990s, wasn’t a party to the settlement. Dosal contends that the lawsuit was meant to publish the companies that did eventually settle for improper behavior, such as deceiving consumers – something the company says it wasn’t a part of.
By 2008, Dosal brands, led by “305” brand cigarettes, accounted for more than 15 percent of the Florida market. Dosal CEO Yolanda Nader said Monday the company was not part of the lawsuit and shouldn’t be penalized now.
“Dosal was not accidentally left out of the settlement, it was dismissed because it was not a party to the acts that the other tobacco companies were accused of and settled for,” Nader said in a statement. “Those paying into the settlement are doing so for past acts of wrongdoing, not for future health care costs.”
AIF, Nader contends, is acting as a front for big tobacco companies attempting to stop the erosion of market share to cheaper competitors. Increasing taxes on the home-grown company could jeopardize the future of the company that now employs 300 workers.
“This poll, its motives and its findings are all tainted, along with the credibility of those calling for a bail-out tax for Big Tobacco on a company that has paid its taxes and played by the rules,” Nader said.
State lawmakers have toyed with the idea of expanding the fee now paid by the Big Four cigarette makers. Previous attempts have been beaten back by the company, founded by Cuban immigrants in the late 1950s.
Though no bill has yet been filed, Senate Finance and Tax Committee chairman Thad Altman, R-Melbourne, told the News Service in November that he would likely file something to close the gap between companies that signed the 1997 settlement agreement and those that didn’t and now command about 20 percent of the Florida market.
