Quote Originally Posted by cigarbuff View Post
Hello everyone,

The excise officer in my State told me that if I want to sell tobacco online, then I need to register with each State since the tobacco laws are different in each State. I am not sure if he knew what he was talking about but I could be wrong. Can someone please help me understand this?

I will charge people sales tax based on their State at the time of online purchase but why do I need to pay each State Tobacco tax? Paying tobacco tax to my State isn't enough? Please advise because registering with each State sounds insane and must be very costly.

Thanks in advance,
Zack
I'm not a tax expert, but I do know Illinois keeps pressing out of state merchants to pay Illinois tax on items shipped to this state. It's been something they've been whining about for years - and I do not believe they have jurisdiction to enforce collecting out of state sales taxes. It appears it may one day go to payment of state taxes on out of state sales - but I'm fairly confident in the current situation what you're being told is not 100% accurate...

If it were my business, I'd ask the excise officer to show me where it's codified that a tobacco retailer must collect out of state tobacco taxes.