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Cigarette auction
TUPELO – The auctioning of thousands of cases of cigarettes confiscated in an April 14 raid of a local tobacco warehouse started at 9 a.m. this morning.
According to Tupelo Police Detective Capt. Bart Aguirre, the more than 1 million cartons of cigarettes will be sold to members of the public who are licensed to sell tobacco.
It will take place at the 278 Highway 178 warehouse just outside of Belden that was raided by the FBI in April uncovering the untaxed tobacco products.
Proceeds from the auction will go to the state, federal and local agencies involved in the investigation and could end up equaling as much as $5 million.
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October 27, 2009
Looks like the taxpayers got ripped off again. Let's see, 1 million cartons @ 10 packs to a carton equals 10 millions packs of smokes. Lets say each pack was sold @ $4.00. Thats 40 million in taxable revenue. At 7% tax that's $2,800,000.00 if my calculation is correct. If the auction brought 1.9 million and of that Tupelo is only getting $277,000.00 looks like about 1 million give or take a $100,000 flushed down drain. Consider other states have higher tax rates also. Lets see, draw pistol, aim at foot, pull trigger.
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