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UPDATE: Auditor says Contraband-cigarette auction brings $1.9M
by The Associated Press
2 years ago | 1873 views | 5 5 comments | 17 17 recommendations | email to a friend | print
Danny Sheffield, bureau director for the Tupelo office of the Mississippi State Tax Commission, center, leads an auction of state-confiscated tobacco in a warehouse just west of Tupelo, Tuesday. (C. Todd Sherman)
Danny Sheffield, bureau director for the Tupelo office of the Mississippi State Tax Commission, center, leads an auction of state-confiscated tobacco in a warehouse just west of Tupelo, Tuesday. (C. Todd Sherman)
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JACKSON — Mississippi Auditor Stacey Pickering says the federal government is collecting significantly more than the state from Tuesday's auction of more than 900,000 cartons of contraband cigarettes.

Pickering said in a news release that the auction in Tupelo generated $1.9 million. He said more than $1.6 million of that will go to the federal government, and Mississippi will keep $277,635.

The cigarettes were seized in two Tupelo area warehouse raids last spring.

Of the money staying in Mississippi, 80 percent goes into the general state budget, 10 percent goes to the State Tax Commission, 8 percent goes to the auditor's office and 2 percent is split among local law enforcement agencies such as the Tupelo Police Department and the Marshall County Sheriff's Department.

Read more in the NEMS Daily Journal newspaper Wednesday.
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Comments
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amydenise1984
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October 27, 2009
BFD-omg, your comment mad me laugh so hard! You are totally right though :)

Chick
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BFD
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October 27, 2009
the should give them to prisoners. kinda of like an obama stimulas packages for convicts.
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amego
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October 27, 2009
Since smoking is bad for your health they should have been destroy.
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rehabku
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October 27, 2009
Well cigs have at least a four shelf life. Most that you buy at stores, (not tobacco store will high turnover) are probably older than a year old. You'll get the freshest from stores that take bi-weekly deliveries. I think the state had their expectations to high. Most brands shown on news weren't high quality name brands. Their expectations were very near wholesale prices. Remember the state gets even more money when the purchasers resell the cigarettes. State taxes would be around $7 more dollars per ctn, not to count Federal taxes. The cheapest price someone could resell them for to cover the taxes owed would be around $23.00 per ctn and that is mighty close to the cheapest you can already buy. So why buy them old from the state. I hope they get stuck with them and have to eat them. Since the state already pocketed 60 million from the $5.00 tax increase last May. That doesn't include the newer $2.70 increase they got later. they should have got the first bidder to go to $300k and settled with it. The state is getting or have already gotten to damn greedy.
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eelwilson
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October 27, 2009
they will to old and dry to use at this point remember they are almost a year old
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